SB    E72    132 


HE 


SMOKELESS  CITY 


BY 


E.  D.  SIMON 


AND 


MARION  FITZGERALD 


LONGMANS 


& 

05  £ 


O     tX) 

o  '- 


THE 

SMOKELESS    CITY 

BY 

E.   D.   SIMON 

M.I.C.E.,    M.t.M.E.    LORD    MAYOR    OF    MANCHESTER, 
MEMBER    OF    THE    DEPARTMENTAL    COMMITTEE    ON    SMOKE    ABATEMENT, 


AND 


MARION    FITZGERALD 

ASSOC.    ROY.    SAN.    INST.  FORMERLY    SANITARY   INSPECTOR    AND 
HEALTH    VISITOR  TO  THE  WOOLWICH  BOROUGH  COUNCIL 


WITH    A    PREFACE 

BY 

LORD    NEWTON 

CHAIRMAN  OF  THE  DEPARTMENTAL  COMMITTEE  ON  SMOKE  ABATEMENT 


WITH   FRONTISPIECE 


LONGMANS,    GREEN    AND    CO., 

39  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON,  E.G.  4 

NEW  YORK,  TORONTO, 
BOMBAY,  CALCUTTA  AND  MADRAS 
1922 


Fox,  JONES  &  Co., 

KEMP  HALL  PRESS,  HIGH  STREET, 

OXFORD. 


Made  in  Great  Britain 


PREFACE. 

THOSE  persons,  who  have  paid  any  attention  to  the 
subject  of  smoke  and  air  pollution,  and,  considering  the 
many  millions  of  human  beings  affected,  they  are 
remarkably  few  in  number,  are  aware  that,  roughly 
speaking,  there  are  two  kinds  of  smoke — industrial  and 
domestic.  The  efforts  of  reformers  in  the  past  have 
been  directed  almost  entirely  against  the  former,  and 
the  public  spirited  work  carried  on  for  many  years  by 
various  Coal  Smoke  Abatement  Leagues  in  the  face  of 
active  obstruction  and  of  official  apathy,  seem  to  be 
within  measurable  distance  of  success,  since  the  present 
Minister  of  Health  has  recently  undertaken  to  bring  in 
a  Bill  embodying  the  recommendations  of  the  Depart- 
mental Committee  on  Smoke  and  Noxious  Vapours 
Abatement. 

The  battle  therefore  against  industrial  smoke  may  be 
said  to  have  been  won  in  principle  ;  but  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  warn  enthusiasts  that  there  are  many 
parliamentary  dangers  to  overcome,  and  that  govern- 
ments are  not  as  a  rule  particularly  zealous  in  forcing 
through  bills  of  a  non-vote-catching  nature.  Even  if 
we  can  assume  that  a  thoroughly  satisfactory  measure 
is  passed  and  duly  enforced,  the  melancholy  fact  re- 
mains that,  if  we  are  fortunate  enough  to  get  rid  of 
industrial  smoke,  we  shall,  nevertheless,  remain  dirtier 
than  other  European  countries  owing  to  domestic  smoke. 

The  relative  share  of  industrial  smoke  and  domestic 
smoke  in  polluting  our  atmosphere  has  been  hotly 
disputed,  and  the  conclusions  arrived  at  in  this  book 
will  doubtless  arouse  much  opposition.  But  in  any 
case  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  competence  of 
the  writers.  Miss  FitzGerald,  who  has  had  valuable 
experience  in  public  health  work,  is  a  well  known 


vi  PREFACE 

authority  on  questions  connected  with  heating  and 
cooking  in  working  class  houses.  Mr.  Simon,  Lord 
Mayor  of  Manchester  at  the  present  moment,  has  for 
some  years  been  one  of  the  prominent  figures  in  the 
smoke  abatement  campaign.  He  is  honourably  dis- 
tinguished for  the  many  services  which  he  has  rendered 
to  his  native  city  ;  he  is  Chairman  of  the  Housing 
Committee  and  also  of  the  Air  Pollution  Advisory 
Board  ;  and  enjoys  the  practical  advantage  of  being 
an  engineer  possessing  works  of  his  own.  In  view  of 
the  knowledge  and  experience  of  these  writers,  it  would 
be  idle  to  dismiss  their  case  against  coal  fires  and  kitchen 
ranges  as  unfounded,  and  it  might  be  added  that  no 
more  appropriate  town  could  be  selected  for  investigation 
than  Manchester,  where  it  has  been  calculated  that  the 
necessary  extra  washing  of  collars  alone  costs  £50,000 
at  pre-war  prices,  and  that  the  damage  due  to  smoke 
amounts  to  over  one  million  pounds  annually. 

The  fact  that  the  authors  have  so  frequently  used 
Manchester  statistics  to  illustrate  their  arguments 
might  be  taken  as  indicating  that  Manchester  is  worse 
as  regards  air  pollution  than  other  great  cities.  The 
reverse  is  nearer  the  truth  ;  it  is  because  not  only  smoke 
reformers,  but  also  the  municipality,  through  several 
of  its  committees,  have  been  particularly  active  in 
Manchester,  that  the  facts  concerning  smoke  abatement 
are  better  known  for  that  city  than  for  any  other. 

Leaving  aside,  for  the  moment,  the  question  of 
industrial  smoke,  it  is  a  remarkable  and  deplorable 
fact  that  the  very  Ministry  which  was  established  to 
protect  the  health  of  the  people  has  hitherto  completely 
ignored  the  damage,  waste,  and  discomfort  caused  by 
domestic  smoke.  A  striking  instance  of  this  indifference 
was  furnished  in  1920,  when  the  Committee  to  which 
reference  has  already  been  made  was  requested  by  the 
Ministry  of  Health  to  issue  an  interim  report  which 
might  be  of  assistance  to  the  various  local  authorities 
in  connection  with  their  housing  schemes.  An  interim 


PREFACE  vii 

report  was  accordingly  drawn  up,  containing  recom-i 
mendations  with  reference  to  the  heating  of  the  new; 
houses,   and  one  special  recommendation  was  to  the 
effect    that    no    building     scheme     should    be     sanc- 
tioned unless  provision  was  made  for  the  adoption  of  \ 
smokeless  methods,    except  in   cases  where  the  central; 
authorities   were   satisfied    that  it    was  impracticable. ' 
Strange  to  say,  the  Ministry  of  Health  did  not  even  go 
to  the  trouble  of  sending  the  report  to  the  local  building 
authorities  until  remonstrated  with  in  Parliament,  and 
the  natural  result  was  that  plans  were  passed  all  over 
the    country    perpetuating    all    the    old    objectionable 
features,  whilst  a  magnificent  opportunity  for  improve- 
ment was  lost.       Fortunately  some  municipalities  and 
public  utility  societies  have  been  wise  enough  to  act  in 
spite  of  this  disheartening  official  apathy. 

It  would  be  impossible  for  any  unprejudiced  person 
to  read  the  lucid  and  convincing  statement  of  Miss 
FitzGerald  and  Mr.  Simon  without  realising  the  strength 
of  the  case  against  the  open  coal  fire  and  the  old  fashioned 
kitchen  range.  Hitherto  all  criticisms  of  our  present 
system  have  been  met  by  indignant  expostulations  that 
the  open  fire  is  one  of  the  sources  of  England's  greatness 
and  prosperity,  and  that  any  attack  upon  it  is  in  the 
nature  of  high  treason.  But  it  must  eventually  dawn 
upon  people,  if  in  fact  it  has  not  already  occurred  to 
them,  that  whatever  legislation  may  be  passed  with 
regard  to  industrial  smoke,  so  long  as  raw  coal  is  con- 
tinually consumed  for  all  domestic  purposes,  our  atmos- 
phere will  remain  polluted  to  a  degree  unknown  in  other 
European  countries.  The  truth  is  that,  looking  at  it 
from  the  view  of  cleanliness,  cheap  coal  has  been  little 
short  of  a  curse.  It  has  in  the  past  been  so  abundant 
and  so  cheap  that  there  was  no  object  in  economising 
its  use,  and  consequently  it  has  been  employed 
indiscriminately  for  all  domestic  purposes.  We  are 
now  beginning  tardily  to  recognise  the  waste,  dirt  and 
trouble  involved  ;  strikes  have  taught  us  that  there 


viii  PREFACE 

need  be  no  apprehension  of  cheapness  in  the  future,  and 
we  are  also  beginning  slowly  to  realise,  for  instance, 
that  the  process  of  hauling  coals  up  to  the  fourth  or 
fifth  floor  has  its  disadvantages.  No  one  in  his  senses 
would  propose  that  the  householder  should  be  forthwith 
compelled  by  law  to  substitute  some  other  form  of 
heating  for  his  existing  open  coal  fire,  but  a  study  of 
this  book  will  show  how  a  compromise  can  be  arrived  at, 
and  local  authorities  would  be  well  advised  to  pay 
attention  to  the  valuable  and  practical  suggestions 
which  it  contains. 

The  deplorable  atmospheric  conditions  under  which  a 
large  proportion  of  the  British  race  lives  can  only  be 
appreciated  fully  by  those  who  have  had  the  opportunity 
of  comparing  them  with  those  prevailing  in  other 
countries.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  many 
millions  of  inhabitants  of  the  north  of  England  have 
never  seen  real  sunlight  in  their  places  of  residence 
•except  in  the  event  of  a  bank  holiday  or  of  a  coal  strike, 
and  most  of  them  have  become  so  inured  to  this 
deprivation  that  they  are  profoundly  sceptical  as  to 
any  possible  remedy.  There  are,  too,  a  large  number  who 
entertain  the  conviction,  naturally  encouraged  by  certain 
manufacturers,  that  dirt  and  wealth  are  synonymous, 
and  that  consequently  any  attempt  to  abate  smoke 
must  be  disastrous  to  industry.  It  is  a  pity  that  persons 
holding  these  views  should  not  have  the  opportunity 
of  seeing  what  can  be  effected  in  other  countries.  Last 
autumn,  Mr.  Simon  and  I,  representing  the  Smoke 
Abatement  Committee,  visited  part  of  the  Rhine 
industrial  district,  where  the  conditions  largely  resemble 
those  of  South  Lancashire.  The  conclusions  we  arrived 
at  will  be  found  in  an  appendix  to  the  Report  of  the 
Committee,  and  are  not  flattering  to  our  national  pride. 
Obviously  one  of  the  main  factors  which  contribute 
to  the  superiority  of  German  over  English  conditions  is 
the  almost  complete  absence  of  domestic  smoke  in 
Germany,  and  it  is  painful  to  an  Englishman  to  compare 


PREFACE  ix 

cities  like  Cologne  and  Diisseldorf  with  corresponding 
industrial  towns  such  as  Manchester  and  Leeds.  One 
simple  fact  illustrates  the  difference.  A  manufacturer 
in  Cologne  or  Diisseldorf  is  content  to  reside  in  the  town, 
because  the  town  is  an  agreeable  place  of  residence. 
But  a  manufacturer  in  Manchester  or  Leeds  hastens  to 
remove  his  residence  to  as  great  a  distance  as  is  com- 
patible with  his  business,  as  soon  as  he  can  afford  to  do  so. 
Is  it  surprising  in  view  of  the  evidence  contained  in  this 
book  ? 

It  would  be  difficult,  as  has  been  already  pointed  out, 
to  over-estimate  the  value  of  the  work  of  Smoke  Abate- 
ment Societies,  both  in  London  and  in  the  provinces, 
in  endeavouring  to  educate  the  public.  For  years  they 
have  struggled  against  official  and  unofficial  apathy  and 
have  at  last  succeeded  in  inducing  a  Government  to 
introduce  legislation.  To  Sir  Alfred  Mond  belongs  the 
credit  of  being  the  first  Minister  to  act,  but  if  the  truth 
must  be  told,  he  is  only  doing  his  obvious  duty.  What 
is  the  use  of  creating  a  Ministry  of  Health  unless  it 
occupies  itself  with  a  nuisance  which  closely  affects  the 
daily  life  of  many  millions  of  British  citizens  ?  Where 
is  the  logic  of  spending  millions  of  pounds  on  so-called 
social  reform  if  this  particular  nuisance,  expensive, 
unnecessary,  and  offensive,  is  to  be  permitted  to  con- 
tinue unchecked  ?  The  only  answer  to  these  queries  is 
that  very  little  thought  has  been  given  to  the  matter,  and 
that  we  are  only  just  awakening  to  the  fact  that  the 
conditions  described  in  this  book  are  discreditable  to  a 
highly  civilized  community. 

NEWTON. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE         v. 

CHAPTER  I. 
INTRODUCTION          1 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  DAMAGE  DONE  BY  SMOKE        11 

CHAPTER  III. 

CRITICISM  OF  PRESENT  METHODS  OF  OBTAINING  HEAT 
IN  DWELLING  HOUSES 20 

CHAPTER  IV. 
WARMING  THE  HOUSE          29 

CHAPTER  V. 
HOT  WATER  SUPPLY  52 

CHAPTER  VI. 
COOKING        57 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Low  TEMPERATURE  FUEL  (COALITE)        67 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
CONCLUSION  71 

APPENDIX 

INQUIRY    INTO    COMPARITIVE    COST    OF    HOUSEHOLD 
WASHING  IN  MANCHESTER  AND  HARROGATE  79- 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

THE  smoke  abater  is  almost  universally  regarded  as  an 
amiable  and  unpractical  faddist ;  and  when  one 
considers  the  long  and  sterile  history  of  the  movement, 
and  the  methods  generally  pursued  by  the  smoke 
abatement  enthusiast  in  the  past,  one  cannot  deny 
that  the  indictment  has  at  least  some  justification. 

The  nuisance  of  coal  smoke  was  complained  of  and 
legislated  against  as  early  as  the  time  of  Edward  I., 
who  firmly  believed  that  smoke  affected  his  health. 
He  issued  proclamations  forbidding  the  use  of  coal 
while  Parliament  was  sitting,  and  it  is  related  that 
a  man  was  actually  hanged  in  the  i4th  century  for 
causing  a  smoke  nuisance  !  That  even  this  somewhat 
drastic  penalty  was  not  completely  effective  as  a 
deterrent  is  proved  by  constant  references  to  the  evils 
of  coal  smoke  during  the  intervening  centuries.  In 
1661  Evelyn  wrote  in  his  Diary  of  "  that  hellish  and 
dismal  cloud  of  sea-coal  which  is  perpetually  over  this 
august  and  opulent  city  of  London." 

A  century  and  a  half  later,  Henry  Luttrell,  a  well- 
known  wit,   wrote  a  society  epic  called  "  Advice  to 
Julia  "  in  the  course  of  which,  after  describing  a  London 
fog,  he  made  an  appeal  to  the  Science  of  Chemistry  to 
"  Make  all  our  chimneys  chew  the  cud 

Like  hungry  cows,  as  chimneys  should." 
From  which  it  appears  that  literary  men,  at  any  rate, 
made  their  protest  against  the  smoke  evil. 

During  the  last  century  the  problem  has  become 
steadily  more  acute  through  the  enormously  increased 
consumption  of  coal,  and  the  concentration  of  factories 
and  dwelling  houses  in  great  cities.  Parliament  has 
appointed  committee  after  committee  to  inquire  into 


2  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

it,  and  has  with  great  consistency  paid  no  attention  to 
their  reports,  except  to  pigeon-hole  them.  The  only 
national  legislation  has  been  in  the  Public  Health  Act 
of  1875. 

The  increase  of  smoke  has  been  gradual,  and  as  it 
has  corresponded  with  the  spread  of  the  factory  system 
and  with  industrial  prosperity,  it  has  been  looked  upon 
with  a  too  tolerant  eye.  The  chimney  belching  forth 
black  smoke  is,  even  to-day,  sometimes  regarded  as  a 
cheering  proof  of  prosperity.  Complaints  of  the  smoke 
nuisance  have  been  continuous,  but  the  methods  ad- 
vocated for  combating  it  have  left  much  to  be  desired. 
The  smoke  abater  has  generally  relied  on  passionate 
appeals  to  clean  up  the  atmosphere  of  our  grimy  towns, 
without  any  indication  as  to  how  it  should  be  done  ; 
and  on  the  prosecution  of  manufacturers  who  make 
smoke,  again  without  showing  them  how  it  can  be 
prevented.  There  are  books  by  keen  reformers  who, 
with  boundless  enthusiasm  and  a  complete  lack  of 
technical  knowledge,  do  not  hesitate  to  explain  to 
manufacturers  and  engineers  that  smoke  from  a  factory 
chimney  always  means  waste  and  inefficiency  and  always 
proves  that  the  manager  of  the  factory  in  question  is  no 
less  a  fool  to  incur  such  waste  than  a  knave  to  inflict 
such  damage  on  his  neighbours. 

This  is,  of  course,  sheer  nonsense.  While  it  is  true 
under  normal  conditions  that  anything  more  than  quite 
light  smoke  from  an  ordinary  boiler  furnace  is  unneces- 
sary and  should  be  prevented,  yet  every  competent 
person  who  has  given  any  serious  consideration  to  the 
problem  knows  perfectly  well  that  there  are  special 
processes  in  which  the  prevention  of  factory  smoke 
may  prove  an  exceedingly  difficult  and  costly  matter  for 
the  manufacturer. 

During  the  past  30  years,  smoke  abatement  societies 
have  arisen  in  this  country  in  large  numbers.  They  have 
rarely  survived  more  than  a  few  years.  They  failed  in 
their  earlier  days  to  recognise  the  complexity  and  the 


INTRODUCTION  3 

difficulty  of  the  problem,  and  have  thought  that  it 
could  be  dealt  with  by  enthusiastic  propaganda,  com- 
bined with  larger  fines  and  more  active  prosecution  of 
manufacturers.  As  they  gained  experience,  they  began 
to  appreciate  the  hopelessness  of  the  problem  when 
tackled  along  these  lines,  the  members  gradually  lost 
interest,  and  after  a  time  the  society  died,  to  be  succeeded 
in  a  few  years  by  another  one  which  duly  went  through 
the  same  cycle. 

From  the  same  cause  has  arisen  the  apathy,  not  only 
of  the  public,  but  of  the  business  world,  of  engineers 
and  scientists,  of  local  authorities,  and  of  the  government, 
in  face  of  this  great  and  urgent  question  of  the  cleansing 
of  our  atmosphere.  The  average  practical  man  appre- 
ciates that  the  kind  of  talk  which  we  have  quoted 
above  will  lead  nowhere,  and  as  he  hears  no  other 
suggestions  regarding  smoke  abatement,  he  simply  loses 
interest  in  the  whole  subject  and  writes  it  off  as  a  fad. 

NEW  METHODS. 

The  time  has  come  for  entirely  new  methods.  The 
difficulty  and  complexity  of  the  problem  must  be 
recognised.  Promiscuous  prosecution  and  ignorant  pro- 
paganda must  be  replaced  by  research,  by  scientific 
method,  by  helpful  technical  advice,  and  by  education 
both  of  the  manufacturer  and  of  the  public.  The 
increased  price  of  coal  will  help.  Coal  has  been  so 
cheap  that  it  has  been  wasted  to  an  astounding  extent. 
The  higher  level  of  post  war  prices  will  force  manu- 
facturers and  others  to  take  more  pains,  and  so,  out 
of  self  interest,  to  help  forward  the  great  twin  causes 
of  fuel  economy  and  smoke  abatement. 

Hitherto  the  efforts  of  reformers  have  been  directed 
almost  entirely  against  factory  smoke.  The  first  step 
on  the  road  to  success  is  to  realise  that  the  house  chimney 
is  a  much  more  dangerous  enemy  than  the  factory 
chimney,  both  because  domestic  smoke  is  far  greater 
in  quantity  and  far  more  harmful  in  quality  than  factory 
smoke,  and  because  factory  smoke  is  already  rapidly 


4  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

decreasing,    and   will   almost    certainly   be   immensely 
reduced  in  the  next  10  or  20  years. 

FACTORY  SMOKE. 

Although  this  book  deals  mainly  with  smoke  from 
the  domestic  chimney,  it  is  perhaps  desirable,  in  view 
of  the  still  prevalent  idea  that  the  smoke  nuisance 
means  only  factory  smoke,  to  explain  shortly  the 
reasons  for  regarding  this  side  of  the  problem  as  relatively 
unimportant  in  most  areas,  though,  of  course,  still  a 
serious  and  urgent  question  in  our  great  industrial 
centres. 

We  give  in  Chapter  II.  very  strong  reasons  for  the 
belief  that,  taking  the  country  as  a  whole,  factory  smoke 
is  responsible  for  less  than  one  quarter  of  the  damage 
done  by  smoke  What  is  even  more  important  is  that 
factory  smoke  is  steadily — though  none  too  rapidly — 
decreasing,  owing  to  the  growing  use  of  electricity  and 
gas.  Hundreds  of  small  and  smoky  factory  furnaces 
are  being  closed  down  in  order  to  get  a  cheaper  and  more 
reliable  supply  of  power  from  electric  power  stations, 
which  being  large,  efficient  plants,  produce  much  less 
smoke  than  the  chimneys  they  replace. 

This  closing  down  of  individual  manufacturers' 
plants  will  certainly  be  accelerated  by  the  new  move- 
ment in  the  electrical  world,  the  building  of  great 
super-stations  and  the  inter-connection  of  all  plants 
in  each  industrial  area.  Experts  assure  us  that  this 
will  mean  a  big  reduction  in  the  price  of  electricity. 

The. use  of  gas  for  power  has  led  to  the  abolition  of 
many  steam  engines,  and  its  application  to  industrial 
purposes  is  extending  rapidly,  especially  in  connection 
with  many  metallurgical  and  other  processes  where 
black  smoke  has  hitherto  been  considered  unavoidable. 
The  difficulty  is  often  completely  overcome  by  the  use 
of  gas.  It  seems  likely  that  in  the  gas  industry,  as  in 
the  electrical  industry,  super-stations  will  be  built 
in  some  areas  close  to  the  coal  fields,  probably  in  the 


INTRODUCTION  5 

form  of  coke  ovens,  and  as  far  as  10  to  20  miles  away 
from  the  town  where  the  gas  is  to  be  used.  This  would 
remove  the  nuisance  of  the  gas-works  from  the. city, 
and  would,  it  is  hoped,  substantially  reduce  the  price  of 
gas. 

Notwithstanding  the  increased  use  of  gas  and  elec- 
tricity, there  will  always  remain  a  number  of  factory 
chimneys,  for  heating  the  works  and  other  special 
purposes.  A  better  organisation  is  needed  to  ensure 
that  manufacturers  use  the  best  available  smokeless 
methods  :  to  advise  them  what  to  do,  and  in  case  of 
necessity  to  prosecute.  But  as  the  experience  of  the 
inspectors  of  chemical  works  under  the  Alkali  Acts 
shows,  given  skilled  inspection  and  advice  by  high  class 
experts  in  whom  the  manufacturers  have  confidence, 
prosecution  becomes  almost  unnecessary.  After  all, 
the  average  manufacturer  is  a  reasonable  being,  and 
takes  no  pleasure  whatever  in  creating  a  nuisance  in 
his  own  works. 

The  Departmental  Committee  on  smoke  abatement 
has  made  recommendations  on  these  points  which  are 
very  clearly  summarised  as  follows  by  Sir  Frederick 
Willis,  whose  long  administrative  experience  at  the 
Local  Government  Board,  and  the  Ministry  of  Health, 
gives  great  weight  to  his  views  : — 

"As  to  the  legislation  recommended  by  the  De- 
partmental Committee  the  position,  as  I  look  at  it,  is 
this.  The  Public  Health  Act  of  1875  absolutely 
prohibits  the  sending  of  black  smoke  into  the  atmosphere 
in  such  quantity  as  to  be  a  nuisance.  Two  defects 
exist,  I  think,  in  the  present  law  :  (i)  the  absolute 
prohibition  which,  if  it  were  actually  enforced,  would 
destroy  much  of  the  trade  of  this  country;  and  (2)  the 
fact  that  the  administration  of  this  important  law  has 
been  placed  in  the  hands  of  all  the  1,800  big  arrd  little 
sanitary  authorities  of  this  country. 

"  The  law  we  propose  is  that  everybody  should  do  \ 
everything  practicable  to  reduce  smoke  from  manu- 


6  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

facturing  chimneys.  We  propose  that  this  law  shall 
be  administered  by  the  great  authorities  of  this  country, 
viz.,  county  councils  and  county  borough  councils. 
I  quite  agree  that  you  do  not  want  in  every  case  to  put 
on  the  prosecutors  the  onus  of  showing  that  the  manu- 
facturer is  not  doing  what  is  practicable.  For  that 
reason  we  have  recommended  presumptive  standards, 
infringement  of  which  will  constitute  a  prima  facie  case 
that  the  manufacturer  has  committed  an  offence ; 
if  the  manufacturer  is  doing  worse  than  the  standard 
he  will  have  to  prove  that  he  could  not  do  better. 

"  In  practice  I  believe  a  law  in  this  form,  with  the 
presumptive  standard  fixed  by  the  Minister  of  Health, 
'vill  be  a  simple  law  to  enforce.  For  example,  the 
Mersey  and  Irwell  Rivers  Board  are  entitled  to  prosecute 
a  local  authority  which  is  not  purifying  its  sewage 
as  far  as  practicable.  The  Board  have  themselves 
framed  a  provisional  standard  and  take  action  whenever 
the  effluent  is  worse  than  that.  I  am  not  aware  of  any 
case  in  which  a  local  authority  has  endeavoured  to 
show  that  it  was  not  practicable  to  purify  up  to  that 
standard.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  law  in  this  new  form, 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  new  authorities,  is  likely  to 
be  of  much  greater  value  and  much  more  effective 
than  the  present  absolute  prohibition,  which  cannot  be 
observed." 

These  recommendations,  if  embodied  in  a  wisely- 
drafted  bill,  should  meet  with  little  or  no  opposition, 
and  if  put  into  force  would  do  a  great  deal  to  improve 
matters.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Ministry  of  Health, 
instead  of  pigeon-holing  the  report  in  the  time-honoured 
way,  will  at  once  bring  in  and  push  through  a  govern- 
ment bill. 

There  is  every  indication  that  the  gas  and  electricity 
industries  are  entering  on  a  period  of  vigorous  develop- 
ment, both  technical  and  commercial.  It  seems  not 
unreasonable  to  forecast  that  factory  smoke  will  rapidly 
diminish,  and  may  cease  to  be  a  question  of  urgent 
national  importance  in  the  next  20  years* 


INTRODUCTION  7 

THE  DOMESTIC  CHIMNEY. 

The  problem  with  which  we  propose  to  deal  in  this 
book  is  that  of  domestic  smoke,  which  is  far  worse 
and  in  some  respects  more  difficult  to  deal  with  than 
factory  smoke. 

We  shall  have  in  mind  throughout  the  workman's 
cottage  and  the  small  middle-class  house,  which  together 
make  up  the  majority  of  dwellings  in  any  community. 
There  is  to-day  a  grave  shortage  of  such  houses,  and  it 
is  necessary  that  many  hundred  thousands  shall  be 
built  in  the  near  future.  Are  they  to  be  built  in  the 
bad  old  way,  with  smoky  extravagant  coal  ranges  and 
coal  fires,  to  contribute  further  to  making  our  cities* 
uninhabitably  filthy  ;  or  can  the  builders  be  induced 
to  take  advantage  of  modern  knowledge,  and  to  use 
clean,  efficient  and  convenient  methods  of  heating  ?  : 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  anybody  who  investigates 
the  domestic  smoke  abatement  problem  is  the  extra- 
ordinary lack  of  knowledge  as  to  the  efficiency  of 
the  various  kinds  of  apparatus.  The  worst  example  is 
that  of  the  coal  fire. 

There  are  tens  of  millions  of  open  coal  fires  in  Great 
Britain,  and  yet,  it  is  literally  true  to  say  that  up  to 
three  or  four  years  ago  nobody  had  ever  taken  the 
trouble  to  make  any  sort  of  scientific  investigation  into 
the  factors  upon  which  their  efficiency  depends.  No 
less  an  authority  than  Sir  Dugald  Clerk  stated  in  the 
Gas  Journal  for  November  4th,  1919,  that  "  in  coal 
fires  as  ordinarily  used  only  8  per  cent,  of  the  heat  of 
combustion  of  the  coal  is  utilised  in  the  room/'  The 
Manchester  experiments  have  now  proved  that  the 
correct  figure  (under  test  conditions)  is  from  20  per  cent, 
to  25  per  cent.1  It  is  clear  that  any  attempt  to  advise 

1  See  The  Coal  Fire.  A  Research  by  Margaret  White  Fishenden, 
D.Sc.,  for  the  Manchester  Corporation  Air  Pollution  Advisory  Board, 
published  in  1920  by  H.M.  Stationery  Office  for  the  Department  of 
Scientific  and  Industrial  Research. 

We  are  indebted  to  Dr.  Fishenden  and  also  to  Mr.  A.  H.  Barker, 
author  of  Domestic  Fuel  Consumption,  for  much  information  on  the- 
subject  of  domestic  heating. 


8  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

on  the  use  of  different  types  of  apparatus  in  given 
conditions  must  be  utterly  futile  until  accurate  data  are 
available  for  all  types. 

Why  have  such  apparently  inexcusable  conditions 
been  allowed  to  continue  ?  The  explanation  is  probably 
that  it  is  to  nobody's  interest  to  undertake  research  into 
smoke  abatement  and  domestic  fuel  economy  except 
the  public's.  In  most  industries  progress  is  vital  to 
the  manufacturer,  and  out  of  self-interest  he  carries 
on  the  necessary  research.  But  in  domestic  heating, 
regarded  as  a  whole,  this  does  not  apply. 

What  are  the  motives  of  the  purchaser  of  a  kitchen 
range  or  coal  fire  ?  It  must  be  remembered  that  we  are 
dealing  with  the  small  house,  built  almost  invariably 
by  the  speculative  builder.  He  cannot  get  a  higher 
price  or  rent  for  the  house  if  the  heating  apparatus  is 
more  efficient.  In  practice  the  purchaser  or  tenant 
rarely  asks  about  it,  being  quite  as  ignorant  as  to  what 
is  an  efficient  apparatus  as  is  the  landlord  himself.  The 
builder  therefore  buys  the  cheapest  decent  looking 
grate,  and  relies  on  the  reputation  of  the  maker  to  ensure 
that  it  will  work.  He  never  dreams  of  asking  how  much 
coal  it  will  burn  or  how  much  smoke  it  will  make.  The 
inevitable  result  is  that  the  maker  cares  nothing  for  these 
points,  and  is  often  as  ignorant  about  them  as  the  user. 

Then  again  there  are  at  least  half  a  dozen  different 
sets  of  manufacturers  concerned  in  house  heating  :  the 
makers  of  gas  and  electrical  apparatus,  of  coal  fires,  of 
kitchen  ranges,  and  of  stoves,  and  central  heating 
engineers.  There  is  no  way  in  which  the  public  can  find 
out  the  relative  merits  of  apparatus  used  by  the  different 
classes  of  manufacturers,  so  there  is  little  incentive  to 
any  of  them  to  improve  or  cheapen  their  own  productions. 
It  is  only  in  the  gas  industry  that  really  effective 
research  has  been  carried  out,  and  great  steps  have  been 
taken  in  improving  the  efficiency,  ventilating  power,  and 
amenity  of  the  gas  fire.  The  British  Commercial 
Gas  Association  is  also  now  carrying  on  a  vigorous  and 


INTRODUCTION  9 

effective  campaign  to  educate  the  public  in  the  ad- 
vantages of  gas. 

One  extraordinary  fact  is  our  ignorance  of  foreign 
practice  in  heating  houses.  On  the  continent  small 
houses  have  almost  invariably  a  large  slow  combustion 
stove,  which  serves  both  for  heating  and  cooking,  and 
apparently  does  them  both  efficiently  with  very  small 
fuel  consumption.  But  neither  the  manufacturer  of 
gas  stoves  nor  of  coal  grates  nor  of  any  of  the  other 
apparatus  used  in  this  country  considers  it  his  business 
to  know  anything  about  so  foreign  an  apparatus  as  the  , 
continental  stove.  While  it  can  be  asserted  definitely  ' 
that  such  stoves  are  much  more  efficient  heaters  than 
anything  we  have  except  central  heating,  yet  it  is  not 
known  whether  they  would  be  suitable  for  our  purpose. 
Clearly  it  ought  to  be  known. 

If  the  public  are  to  have  reliable  and  impartial 
guidance  on  the  general  position  of  home  heating,  it 
must  be  directed  by  the  representatives  of  the  public, 
the  government,  or  the  local  authorities.  This  has 
fortunately  begun  to  be  appreciated  during  the  last  few 
years,  and  a  useful  start  has  been  made.  The  Govern- 
ment Fuel  Research  Board  have  realised  the  close 
connection  between  fuel  economy  and  smoke  abatement, 
and  are  in  various  ways  helping  forward  the  cause  of 
atmospheric  cleanliness.  They  are  carrying  out  a 
most  important  investigation  into  the  possibility  of 
producing  a  smokeless  solid  fuel  for  domestic  use,  and 
they  are  giving  grants  in  aid  to  at  least  three  different 
researches  closely  connected  with  smoke  abatement. 
The  Manchester  City  Council  has  also  set  an  excellent 
example  by  forming  in  1912  the  Air  Pollution  Advisory 
Board,  and  by  giving  the  Board  a  grant  up  to  £500  a 
year  for  the  valuable  research  into  domestic  smoke 
abatement  which  has  been  carried  on  by  Dr.  Fishenden, 
at  the  Manchester  College  of  Technology. 

Government  committees  are  notoriously  inclined  to 
report  on  cautious  and  non-committal  lines,  and  to 


io  THE   SMOKELESS    CITY 

be  careful  not  to  overstate  their  case.  But  anybody 
who  spends  some  time  in  studying  the  smoke  abatement 
question  is  so  aghast  at  the  folly  and  wastefulness  of 
our  methods,  that  Lord  Newton's  Departmental  Com- 
mittee were  at  times  forced  into  the  use  of  perhaps 
rather  non-governmental  language.  They  go  so  far 
as  to  talk  of  "  the  dirty,  wasteful  and  unscientific 
habit  of  burning  raw  coal."  Our  endeavour  in  this  book 
is  to  justify  this  statement  and  to  show  how  cleaner, 
and  more  economical  and  scientific  methods  may  be 
adopted. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  DAMAGE  DONE  BY  SMOKE. 

FEW  people  have  any  idea  of  the  immense  and  varied 
damage  done  by  smoke.  What  has  been  well  called 
"  The  Black  Smoke  Tax  "  falls  upon  everybody  living 
in  our  cities.  The  tax  is  levied  on  buildings,  furniture, 
curtains,  wall-paper,  "goods  in  shops  and  warehouses, 
trees  and  other  vegetation,  paint,  and  clothes,  and, above 
all  on  personal  health  and  well  being.  The  extent  of 
the  damage  is  not  realised  largely  because  it  is  so  difficult 
to  measure.  It  is  only  recently  that  any  successful 
efforts  have  been  made  to  arrive  at  a  reliable  cash  value 
for  some  of  the  damage.  An  interesting  report  (re- 
printed in  the  appendix)  works  out  the  difference  in 
the  cost  of  the  weekly  wash  in  working-class  houses  in 
a  clean  and  dirty  town  respectively.  The  conclusion, 
confirmed  by  a  certificate  from  a  leading  firm  of  ac- 
countants, who  state  that  the  figures  are  on  a  very 
conservative  basis,  shows  that  the  cost  of  household 
washing  in  Manchester  would  be  reduced  by  about 
£250,000  a  year  if  Manchester  was  as  clean  as  Harrogate. 
Again,  we  may  estimate  the  extra  cost  of  washing  one 
single  item  of  clothing  :  namely,  collars.  In  Manchester 
a  collar  can  hardly  be  worn  more  than  one  day ;  in 
really  clean  air  it  can  easily  be  worn  two  or  three  days. 
The  pre-war  charge  for  washing  a  collar  was  one  penny, 
so  that  assuming  one  extra  collar  to  be  needed  every 
other  day,  the  cost  of  living  in  Manchester  in  this 
item  alone  may  be  taken  at  Jd.  per  head  per  day. 
It  is  interesting  to  speculate  as  to  what  proportion  of 
the  population  wears  reasonably  clean  collars  ;  but 
taking  it  as  low  as  one  in  ten,  the  extra  annual  cost  of 

ii 


12  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

washing  Manchester  collars  owing  to  the  smoky  atmos- 
phere works  out  at  well  over  £50,000  at  pre-war  prices. 

Another  interesting  case  where  it  has  proved  possible 
to  get  a  pecuniary  measure  of  the  cost  of  smoke  damage 
was  given  in  evidence  by  Mr.  A.  G.  Ruston  before  the 
Departmental  Committee  on  Smoke  Abatement  in 
connection  with  the  cost  of  milk  production.  In  1919 
the  Food  Controller  appointed  a  travelling  commission 
of  experts  to  advise  on  the  cost  of  milk  production. 
The  farmers  of  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire  made  the 
following  complaint  : — 

"  Milk  producers  in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire, 
particularly  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  our  manu- 
facturing towns,  experience  a  great  difficulty  in 
retaining  cows  in  their  herds  for  more  than  one  year. 
When,  as  last  year,  newly  calved  milk  cows  have 
been  fetching  in  an  open  market  as  much  as  £60  or 
£70  per  head,  and  when,  with  a  controlled  price  for 
beef,  these  same  cows  at  the  end  of  their  lactation 
period,  if  sold  fat,  would  only  realise  £35 — £40,  it 
will  readily  be  seen  that  the  man  who  had  to  replace 
the  whole  of  the  cows  in  his  herd  each  year,  stood  to 
lose  last  year  roughly  £30  per  head  on  his  cows  from 
this  cause  alone.  That  means  that  in  the  industrial 
area  of  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  on  account  of 
that  fact,  the  cost  of  producing  milk  is  much  greater 
than  it  is  in  other  areas." 

This  evidence  was  accepted  by  the  Commission  and  as 
a  result  of  this  report  the  Food  Controller  allowed  an 
extra  twopence  per  gallon  for  the  farmers  in  the  indus- 
trial area  of  the  West  Riding. 

In  this  case  it  will  be  noted  that  the  claim  was  allowed 
because  the  district  was  an  industrial  one.  This  might 
at  the  first  glance  seem  to  tend  to  disprove  our  contention 
that  the  greater  part  of  the  damage  is  due  to  domestic 
smoke.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  a  factory 
area  is  always  one  where  there  are  large  numbers  of 
people  living  and  it  is  therefore  just  in  factory  areas 


DAMAGE    DONE    BY    SMOKE  13 

that  domestic  smoke  is  worst.  For  instance,  Harrogate 
and  Bath  are  clean  towns,  mainly  because  they  are  small. 
If  Harrogate  had  a  population  of  a  million  instead  of 
39,000,  it  would  be  a  dirty,  smoky  town  in  spite  of  the 
absence  of  factory  chimneys. 

An  elaborate  investigation  into  the  damage  done  by 
snoke  was  carried  out  in  Pittsburg  in  1912,  by  a  com- 
mittee of  experts  acting  under  the  auspices  of  the 
University  of  Pittsburg.  They  concluded  that  the 
damage  amounted  annually  to  two  million  pounds 
sterling,  or  to  £4  per  head  of  the  population  per  annum. 

One  of  the  authors  estimated  in  1910  that  the  annual 
damage  due  to  smoke  in  Manchester  amounted  to  at 
least  one  million  pounds  sterling  per  annum.  This 
estimate  has  been  freely  quoted  since,  and  has  never 
been  seriously  questioned.  Its  reasonableness  is  sup- 
ported by  the  facts  that  washing  alone  accounts  for 
over  a  quarter  of  the  total,  and  that  the  Pittsburg 
estimate  amounts  to  more  than  three  times  as  much  per 
head  of  the  population  as  the  Manchester  estimate. 

But  though  the  material  damage  done  by  smoke  is 
enormous,  the  damage  done  to  the  health  and  nerves 
of  human  beings  is  far  more  serious.  Consider  the 
conditions  under  which  the  unfortunate  town  dweller's 
lungs  have  to  work.  Every  day  he  breathes  into  his 
lungs  some  40  pounds  weight  of  air,  many  times  the 
weight  of  what  he  eats,  laden  with  soot,  tar  and  acid* 
This  air  deposits  dirt  inside  him,  and  his  lungs,  if 
examined  after  death,  are  found  to  have  lost  their 
natural  pink  hue  and  to  be  permeated  with  a  black 
sooty  deposit.  No  lungs  can  do  their  best  under  such 
conditions,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Medical 
Officers  of  Health  of  Glasgow  and  Manchester  have 
found  a  marked  rise  in  the  death  rate  from  respiratory 
diseases  after  periods  of  fog,  when  the  soot  and  dirt  in 
the  air  is  most  marked.  This  is  strikingly  illustrated 
by  the  curve  shown  in  Fig.  i. 


THE   SMOKELESS   CITY 


IS 


175 
CO 
C5 
100 
75 
50 


\ 


Fig  I. 
Diagram    prepared    in    the  Manchester  Public   Health    Department 

showing  the  rise  in  the  death-rate  from  respiratory  diseases 
(a)  In  the  fourth  week  of  December,  1916,  following  on  6  days  of  fog 

in  the  previous  week  ;   and 

(6)  In  the  third  week  of  February,  1917,  following  on  4  days  of  fog  in 
the  previous  week. 


DAMAGE    DONE   BY    SMOKE  15 

The  cutting  off  of  sunlight  is  even  more  harmful. 
It  is  easy  to  measure  the  number  of  hours  of  "  bright  " 
sunshine  ;  these  are  reduced  in  Manchester  about  20 
per  cent,  by  the  smoky  atmosphere.  But  the  intensity 
of  what  is  recorded  as  "  bright  sunshine  "  is  seriously 
decreased  by  smoke.  It  is  estimated  that  about  half 
the  effective  sunshine  is  intercepted  by  smoke  in  the 
centre  of  Manchester. 

SUNSHINE  AND  HEALTH. 

There  is  an  old  Italian  proverb  which  says  that 
"  all  diseases  come  in  the  dark  and  are  cured  in  the  sun," 
and  modern  medical  science  has  proved  that  sunlight 
is  both  a  disinfectant  and  a  healer.  It  takes  four  days 
to  kill  anthrax  spores  by  means  of  carbolic  acid  and 
a  day  with  a  5  per  cent,  solution  of  potassium  per- 
manganate, but  sunlight  will  destroy  them  in  ij  hours. 
The  germs  of  tuberculosis  are  rapidly  killed  by  being 
exposed  to  the  action  of  direct  sunlight,  but  have  been 
found  to  be  still  virulent  after  two  months  when  kept  in 
the  dark.  Those  towns  which  have  their  sunlight 
diminished  through  smoke  are  deprived  to  a  greater 
extent  of  a  powerful,  natural  germicide,  and  in  such 
places  man's  bacterial  enemies  have  every  opportunity 
to  lead  prolonged  and  mischievous  lives. 

That  sunshine  is  also  a  healer  is  proved  by  the  excellent 
results  obtained  by  the  sun-cures  for  tuberculosis  and 
other  diseases,  which  are  carried  out  in  the  high  altitudes 
of  Switzerland  and  elsewhere.  Dr.  Bernard  in  St. 
Moritz  and  Dr.  Rollier  at  Leysin  have  found  that  the 
sun,  which  kills  germs,  will  disinfect  all  kinds  of  sores 
better  than  any  chemical  products  and  without  harming 
cellular  tissues.  It  has  a  great  stimulating  effect  on 
the  skin,  helps  to  keep  the  muscles  well-nourished  and 
vivifies  the  blood  by  increasing  the  amount  of  haemoglo- 
bin. If  sunlight  is  so  potent  for  healing  it  must  also 
play  an  important  part  in  maintaining  the  human  body 
in  health,  and  the  loss  of  sunlight  must  mean  a  loss  of 


16  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

health.  There  is  also  this  further  consideration  ;  a 
smoke-darkened  atmosphere  affects  the  spirits  and 
energy  of  those  who  live  and  work  under  such  con- 
ditions, and  this  again  has  an  indirect  bearing  on  health. 
To  what  extent  it  operates  is  difficult  to  measure  and  it 
depends  largely  on  the  personal  factor ;  but  that  it 
makes  life  in  winter  drab,  dreary  and  depressing  for 
thousands  of  people  is  unquestioned.  The  winter  gloom 
almost  certainly  also  lowers  the  powers  of  resistance 
to  infectious  disease. 

If  we  could  only  get  it  into  people's  heads  that  the 
material  damage  done  by  smoke  in  Manchester  alone 
amounts  to  one  million  pounds  sterling  per  annum  and 
that  the  damage  done  to  health  and  nerves  is  even 
greater  than  this — if  the  general  public  could  be  made 
really  to  believe  these  undisputed  facts  and  to  under- 
stand and  grasp  what  they  mean,  the  cause  of  smoke 
abatement  would  be  won. 

PROPORTION  OF  TOTAL  DAMAGE  DUE  TO  DOMESTIC  SMOKE. 

It  has  generally  been  assumed  that  the  smoke 
nuisance  was  far  more  due  to  factory  than  to  house 
chimneys.  Not  only  is  this  incorrect,  but  it  is  the  exact 
reverse  of  the  truth.  The  fallacy  has  doubtless  arisen 
because  a  single  factory  chimney  pouring  forth  masses 
of  smoke  produces  a  much  more  striking  and  obvious 
;  effect  than  a  hundred  house  chimneys.  Nevertheless, 
taking  the  country  as  a  whole,  the  domestic  chimney 
is  responsible  for  three-quarters  of  the  smoke  and  more 
than  three-quarters  of  the  damage. 

In  the  first  place,  owing  to  the  fact  that  coal  is  burnt 
at  a  much  lower  temperature  in  a  domestic  grate  than  in  a 
factory  furnace,  the  particles  that  escape  as  soot  are  not 
so  completely  burnt.  Factory  soot  consists  of  prac- 
tically pure  carbon  and  ash  ;  domestic  soot  contains  a 
large  percentage  of  tar  and  acid.  The  former  is  accord- 
ingly hard  and  relatively  harmless  ;  the  latter,  owing 
to  the  tar,  sticks  to  anything  on  which  it  lodges,  and  the 


DAMAGE   DONE   BY   SMOKE  17 

acid  then  attacks  and  eats  away  the  surface.  So  that 
the  damage  done  by  soot  to  stone,  fabrics,  vegetation, 
etc.,  is  far  more  due  to  domestic  than  to  factory  smoke. 

The  report  of  the  Advisory  Committee  on  Atmospheric 
Pollution  for  the  year  ending  March,  1920,  contains 
an  interesting  measurement  of  the  average  amount  of 
air  pollution  in  London  throughout  the  24  hours  of  the 
day.  London  is  largely  residential  and  might  be 
described  from  a  commercial  point  of  view  as  a  dis- 
tributing rather  than  a  manufacturing  centre,  though 
there  are  a  good  many  industries  carried  on  within  its 
area.  London,  therefore,  suffers  from  both  domestic 
and  industrial  smoke.  The  curve  of  impurity  arrived 
at  by  means  of  an  automatic  filter  showed  that  there  is  a 
definite  cycle  in  the  distribution  of  the  impurities 
throughout  the  24  hours.  Usually  from  about  midnight 
to  6  a.m.  the  air  is  practically  clear  of  impurity — very 
little  being  recorded  except  during  the  prevalence  of 
fogs  in  winter.  At  about  6  a.m.,  when  people  light 
their  fires,  the  impurity  begins  to  increase  in  quantity 
and  continues  to  do  so  until  about  u  a.m.  From  II 
a.m.  till  about  10  p.m.  the  quantity  varies  very  little 
from  hour  to  hour,  but  about  10  p.m.  it  rapidly  begins 
to  diminish  and  has  almost  disappeared  by  midnight. 
This  rapid  decrease  in  the  amount  of  impurity  after 
10  p.m.  is  very  significant.  It  is  not  the  time  of  the 
closing  down  of  factories,  which  takes  place,  in  these 
times  of  shortened  hours  of  labour,  about  6  p.m.,  but 
the  time  when  house  fires  are  dying  down. 

Sir  Napier  Shaw,  head  of  the  Meteorological  Office, 
who  has  directed  these  investigations,  points  out  in 
particular  that  the  dirt  on  Sundays  is  about  two-thirds 
of  week-day  dirt ;  and  concludes  that  "  domestic  smoke 
is  responsible  for  about  two-thirds  of  the  smoke 
problem."1 

Another  striking  proof  of  the  relative  importance  of 
factory  and  domestic  smoke  is  due  to  facts  provided  by 

1  Letter  to  Times,  April  5th,  1922. 


i8  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

Professor  Cohen  and  Mr.  A.  G.  Ruston.  They  have 
proved  that  when  coal  is  burnt  under  average  domestic 
conditions,  no  less  than  6  per  cent,  of  the  total  weight 
of  the  coal  escapes  from  the  top  of  the  chimney  in  the 
form  of  soot,  whereas  from  the  average  factory  furnace 
only  about  0*5  per  cent,  escapes.  "  Taking  the  average 
loss  at  6  per  cent,  on  the  32  million  tons  of  coal  used 
for  domestic  consumption,  and  0-5  per  cent  on  100  million 
tons  used  for  industrial  purposes,  we  get : — 

32,000,000  at  6  per  cent.      =  1,920,000 
100,000,000  at  0-5  per  cent.  =     500,000 


2,430,000  tons.": 


So  that  on  these  figures  very  nearly  four-fifths  of  the 
total  pollution  of  the  air  is  due  to  domestic  smoke. 

The  recent  report  of  the  Departmental  Committee 
on  Smoke  Abatement  published  Professor  Cohen's  and 
Mr.  Ruston's  figures  ;  and  nothing  in  the  report  has 
been  so  freely  criticised.  Several  reviewers  state  that 
they  do  not  believe  that  the  proportion  of  domestic 
smoke  is  anything  like  so  great  as  four-fifths  of  the  total 
— though  none  of  them  gives  any  reasons  for  his 
disbelief.  It  is  all  the  more  interesting  that  Sir  Napier 
Shaw  arrives  at  much  the  same  result.2  The  fact  that 
two  such  authorities,  working  on  totally  different  lines, 
arrive  at  such  concordant  results,  must  convince  the 
most  sceptical. 

Taking  the  mean  of  the  two  results,  we  may  act  on 
the  assumption  that  three-fourths  of  the  total  atmospheric 
pollution  is  due  to  the  house  chimney.  It  is  more 
difficult  to  divide  the  responsibility  for  actual  damage 

1  Smoke,  a  Study  of  Town  Air.     1912. 

2  It  should  be  noted  that  Sir  Napier  Shaw's  estimate  refers  to  London, 
and  Professor  Cohen's  to  the  whole  country ;  but  London  probably 
contains  factories  and  houses  in  roughly  the  same  proportion  as  the 
whole  country,  so  that  Sir  Napier  Shaw's  estimate  may,  without  serious 
error,  be  compared  with  Professor  Cohen's, 


DAMAGE    DONE    BY    SMOKE  19 

between  the  two  kinds  of  smoke.  Domestic  smoke  is 
certainly  much  the  more  harmful  when  in  contact  with 
stone,  plants  or  lungs  on  account  of  the  tar  and  acid 
which  it  contains.  As  regards  the  cutting  off  of  sun- 
light there  is  probably  nothing  to  choose  between  the 
two.  But  there  is  one  thing  which  increases  the  power 
for  harm  of  factory  smoke :  its  concentration.  A 
chimney  which  pours  forth  vast  masses  of  smoke  for  a 
few  minutes  may  do  immense  harm  to  plant  life.  Many 
complaints  of  this  kind  were  made  by  farmers  before 
the  Departmental  Committee ;  but  the  worst  cases 
were  those  of  chimneys  of  chemical  works,  which 
sometimes  produce  far  more  deadly  fumes  than  a  coal- 
burning  furnace  and  may  completely  destroy  the 
harvest  in  several  fields  in  one  day. 

The  factory  chimney  tends  to  concentrate  its  damage 
over  a  smaller  area  and  to  that  extent  is  more  serious 
where  it  occurs  ;  domestic  smoke  is  diffused  but  far 
more  harmful  in  quality. 

The  greatest  individual  sufferers  are  those  who  live 
near  factory  chimneys,  and  yet  taking  everything  into 
consideration  we  must  estimate  that  over  the  whole 
country  domestic  smoke  is  responsible  for  more  than 
three-fourths  of  the  total  damage. 

SUMMARY. 

The  facts  stated  in  this  chapter  are  so  striking  that 
a  short  summary  of  the  estimated  damage  due  to  smoke 
in  Manchester  may  be  useful : — 

1.  Extra    cost    of    washing    based    on 

working-class  expenditure  . .          £250,000 

2.  Extra  cost  of  washing  collars  alone 

(at  pre-war  price)     . .          . .          . .  £50,000 

3.  Total  material  damage  in  Manchester      £1,000,000 

4.  Damage  to  health  and  spirits  even  more  serious  but 

cannot  be  measured. 

5.  Over  three-fourths  of  the  total  damage  is  due  to 

domestic  smoke, 


CHAPTER    III. 

CRITICISM    OF    PRESENT    METHODS    OF    OBTAINING    HEAT 
IN  DWELLING  HOUSES. 

HEAT  in  dwelling-houses  is  needed  mainly  for  three 
different  purposes  : — 

1.  For  warming  the  house  ; 

2.  For  cooking ; 

3.  For  heating  water. 

The  standard  practice  to-day  is  to  obtain  the  heat  for  all 
purposes  by  burning  raw  coal,  either  in  an  open  grate  or  a 
kitchen  range.  Indeed  the  kitchen  range  is  designed 
to  serve  the  three  purposes  simultaneously  ;  in  addition 
to  providing  the  heat  necessary  for  cooking,  it  warms  the 
room,  and,  by  means  of  a  back  boiler,  provides  hot  water. 
It  is  held  by  chemists  that  to  burn  raw  coal  in  this 
way  is  nothing  less  than  a  "  method  of  barbarism." 
All  sorts  of  valuable  by-products  are  obtained  by 
converting  coal  into  the  smokeless  fuels,  coke  and  gas  : 
coal  tar,  the  source  of  endless  valuable  dyes  and 
medicines  ;  benzol,  most  useful  as  a  motor  spirit ; 
sulphate  of  ammonia,  essential  for  our  agriculture.  All 
these  by-products  are  worth  many  times  more  than 
their  mere  value  as  fuel,  which  is  all  they  are  worth 
when  burnt  as  constituents  of  raw  coal. 

WASTE  DUE  TO  BURNING  RAW  COAL. 

What  is  more  important  is  that  the  present  methods 
are  exceedingly  wasteful  as  regards  the  quantity  of 
fuel  burnt.  It  is  generally  recognised  now  that  our 
coal  supplies  are  the  very  life  blood  of  British  industry, 
and  that  wasteful  methods  of  using  coal  are  little  less 
than  criminal.  The  strictest  economy  of  fuel  is  essential 


CRITICISM  OF  PRESENT  METHODS         21 

in  the  national  interest.     What  is  the  position  as  regards 
household  coal  ? 

The  Royal  Commission  on  Coal  Supplies  in  its  report 
issued  in  1905  estimated  that  no  less  than  half  the  coal 
burnt  for  household  use  might  be  saved  if  better  methods 
were  adopted.  It  follows  that,  of  the  40  million  tons 
burnt  annually  in  domestic  grates,  no  less  than  20 
millions  are  wasted. 

Mr.  A.  H.  Barker  states  l :—"  Of  all  the  fuel  burnt  in 
a  house  for  cooking  and  heating  it  would  probably  be 
under  the  mark  to  estimate  that  three-quarters  is  wasted, 
partly  by  carelessness  and  ignorance,  and  partly  by 
defects  in  the  design  of  the  plant  employed."  Mr. 
Barker  has  done  more  work  than  anybody  else  on  the 
general  question  of  the  fuel  economy  of  domestic  heating 
apparatus,  and  his  estimate  must  therefore  be  taken 
to  be  a  reasonable  one.  According  to  him  the  annual 
waste  of  household  coal  is  not  less  than  30  million  tons  ! 
As  we  have  previously  stated,  fuel  economy  and  smoke 
abatement  are  very  closely  related  ;  and  if  this  immense 
saving  could  be  effected  it  would,  at  the  same  time,  go 
far  to  solve  the  smoke  problem. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  the  full  measure  of  the  loss 
caused  by  the  wasteful  burning  of  raw  coal,  as  against 
the  use  of  smokeless  fuel.  We  have  already  shown  how 
great  is  the  loss  to  the  locality  through  the  damage  done 
by  smoke.  And  further  than  this,  there  is  the  very 
serious  amount  of  extra  labour  required  in  the  house, 
for  carrying  coal  and  cinders,  laying  the  fire  and  cleaning 
the  grate,  and  extra  cleaning  in  the  rooms  due  to  dirt 
caused  by  the  fire. 

The  total  extra  cost  due  to  the  present  methods  of 
burning  raw  coal  may  then  be  summarised  thus : — 

(i).    A  loss  to  the  nation  of  twenty  to  thirty  million 
tons  of  coal  each  year  ; 

1  Domestic  Fuel  Consumption,  p.  I. 


22  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

(2).  A  loss  to  the  locality  due  to  the  damage  caused  by 
coal  smoke,  estimated  for  Manchester  alone,  at 
one  million  pounds  sterling  a  year  ; 

(3).  A  loss  to  the  household,  which  can  hardly  be 
estimated  in  figures,  due  to  the  extra  labour 
involved. 

"  THE  SILLY,  WASTEFUL,  AIR  POISONING,  FOG  CREATING 

FIREPLACE." 

So  runs  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells'  comment  on  the  coal  grate, 
and  though  we  are  inclined  to  agree  with  him,  it  is 
necessary  that  we  should  examine  the  coal  fire  scientific- 
ally and  not  condemn  it  off-hand. 

We  have  already  stated  that  the  coal  fire  is  not  so 
hopelessly  inefficient  as  was  formerly  thought.  Dr. 
Fishenden's  valuable  experiments  in  Manchester  have 
shown  that  the  proportion  of  the  available  heat  in  the 
coal  which  is  radiated  into  the  room  is  not  a  miserable 
8  per  cent.,  but  between  20  and  25  per  cent.  The 
remainder  of  the  heat  either  soaks  into  the  walls  of 
the  fire-place  or  the  flue,  or  escapes  from  the  top  of  the 
chimney.  Probably  about  5  per  cent,  is  given  off  as 
convected  heat  in  the  room  where  the  fire  is  situated  ; 
of  the  remaining  amount,  say  70  per  cent.,  anything 
from  15  to  55  per  cent,  may  escape  from  the  chimney 
top,  depending  mainly  on  the  draught,  but  also  on  other 
conditions.  When  the  draught  is  cut  down  to  a  minimum 
so  that  only  15  per  cent,  escapes  from  the  chimney  top 
(partly  in  the  form  of  soot  and  unburnt  gases,  partly  as 
heat)  the  remaining  55  per  cent,  is  absorbed  by  the 
walls.  If  the  chimney  is  in  an  inside  wall  a  great  part 
of  this  heat  may  be  useful  in  warming  the  upper  rooms  ; 
if  in  an  outside  wall,  probably  half  of  it,  amounting  to 
20  per  cent,  or  25  per  cent,  of  the  total  heat  in  the  coal, 
will  be  completely  wasted.  And  yet  architects  dearly 
love  to  place  chimneys  on  outside  walls  and  have  little 
idea  how  much  valuable  heat  they  are  wasting. 


CRITICISM  OF  PRESENT  METHODS         23 

OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  COAL  FIRE. 

The  main  objections  to  the  use  of  the  coal  fire  are,  of 
course,  those  on  which  we  have  already  laid  so  much 
stress  :  the  waste  of  coal,  and  the  damage  done  by 
smoke.  Many  people  believe  that  the  modern  slow 
combustion  grate  makes  much  less  smoke  than  the 
older  types.  But  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  to 
support  this  belief.  The  point  in  favour  of  the  slow 
combustion  grate  is  that  it  can  be  made  to  burn  slowly 
if  the  user  so  desires,  whereas  the  old-fashioned  grate 
burns  rapidly  and  consumes  much  fuel. 

But  there  are  many  other  reasons  why  the  coal  fire 
is  far  from  being  an  ideal  heating  apparatus.  Its 
surface  is  nearly  horizontal  in  form  and  so  directs  a 
large  amount  of  the  heat  towards  the  ceiling,  where  it  is 
not  wanted.  There  is  also  a  considerable  loss  through 
direct  radiation  up  the  chimney  flue.  While  the  coal 
fire  ventilates  excellently,  it  generally  does  so  to  excess 
and  renews  the  air  of  the  room  much  more  rapidly  than 
is  necessary  for  health.  This  means  extra  heat  to  warm 
up  the  unnecessary  air  that  is  being  drawn  through  the 
room,  and,  what  is  much  more  serious,  the  creation  of 
draughts.  It  is  a  common  experience  while  "  hugging 
the  fire  "  to  feel  a  chilly  draught  at  the  back  of  one's 
neck,  and  at  the  same  time  to  smell  one's  shoe-leather 
scorching.  A  coal  fire  warms  by  radiation  ;  those  near 
the  fire  may  be  too  hot,  anybody  sitting  away  from  the 
fire  and  near  a  window  may  be  shivering  with  cold. 

Then  again,  with  a  system  of  coal  fire  heating,  many 
of  the  rooms  of  a  house  are  as  a  rule  not  warmed.  In 
the  cottage  and  the  small  house  there  is  usually  only  one, 
or,  at  most,  two  fires  going  ;  the  rest  of  the  rooms  are 
fireless  from  one  year  to  another,  with  the  very  common 
result,  in  this  moist  climate,  of  dampness. 

THE  HOUSEWIFE'S  ENDLESS  WORK. 
It  is  sometimes  said  ironically  that  a  woman's  work 
is  never  done,  and  the  implication  is  that  her  methods 


24  THE    SMOKELESS   CITY 

are  less  good  than  those  of  the  man  in  the  office  or 
workshop.  When,  however,  we  consider  that  the  house- 
wife wages  continual  war  against  dirt,  both  that  which 
is  created  inside  the  house  and  constant  invasions  of 
it  from  without,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  if  she  has  a  high 
standard  of  domestic  cleanliness  her  work  is  literally 
never  done.  Coal  fires  inside  her  own  house  will  create 
dust,  and  thin  desposits  of  soot  will  be  found  upon  the 
furniture,  curtains  and  covers.  To  get  rid  of  this 
means  more  labour  in  addition  to  what  she  has  already 
expended  on  clearing  up  grates,  laying  fires  and  dragging 
coals  about ;  it  is  an  indisputable  fact  that  coals  are 
carried  over  distances,  amounting  to  many  thousands 
of  miles,  in  British  homes  in  a  single  year  !  Then, 
unless  our  house-wife  keeps  her  windows  tightly  shut 
and  violates  the  laws  of  hygiene,  dirt,  caused  by  her 
neighbours'  chimneys,  will  add  to  her  labours.  To  sleep 
with  open  windows  in  a  smoky  town  means  that,  not 
only  will  the  sleeper,  who  went  to  bed  with  a  clean  face, 
wake  with  a  dirty  one,  but  that  a  considerable  shower  of 
soot  will  fall  on  pillows,  sheets  and  blankets  during  the 
night.  The  town-dwelling  woman,  if  she  is  really 
particular,  will  dust  her  rooms  more  than  once  a  day, 
and  wash  her  curtains  six  times  as  often  as  the  house- 
wife in  the  country.  Hence  another  charge  against 
the  coal  fire  is  that  it  involves  a  great  deal  of  unneces- 
sary work  for  women  in  the  home. 

COAL  FIRES  ARE  SLOW. 

In  certain  circumstances,  as  when  heat  is  required 
in  a  hurry,  the  coal  fire  may  be  quite  the  worst-adapted 
means  for  the  purpose.  Take,  for  example,  the  break- 
fast time  fire  in  a  small  middle-class  house  where  the 
family  use  the  dining-room  as  the  general  living-room  as 
well  as  for  meals.  To  be  really  efficient  the  fire  should 
be  lighted  an  hour  before  the  room  is  required  for  the 
early  breakfast,  but,  as  nobody  can  be  found  to  rise  in 
time  to  do  this,  the  so-called  fire  is  but  a  mass  of  charred 
wood  and  smouldering  coal,  with  just  enough  heat  to 


CRITICISM  OF  PRESENT  METHODS         25 

set  up  air  currents  in  the  room  but  not  enough  to 
warm  the  occupants.  The  result  is  that  the  people  in 
the  room  experience  a  greater  sensation  of  cold  than  they 
would  do  in  a  fireless  room  with  an  extra  garment  on. 
By  the  time  breakfast  is  over  and  the  family  have  de- 
parted to  work  and  school  and  the  housewife  to  active 
duties  in  the  other  parts  of  the  house,  the  room  begins 
to  be  pleasantly  warm,  but  there  is  nobody  left  to 
enjoy  it.  The  best  remedy  for  this  state  of  affairs  is  not 
necessarily  to  have  breakfast  clad  in  a  top  coat,  but  to 
set  apart  a  room  for  meals  and  install  a  mode  of  heating, 
a  gas  fire  or  an  electric  radiator,  which  reaches  its 
maximum  intensity  in  a  very  short  time  and  can  be 
turned  on  and  off  as  required, 

THE  KITCHEN  RANGE. 

While  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  defence  of  the 
coal  fire,  nothing  whatever  can  be  urged  in  favour  of 
the  ordinary  open  kitchen  range.  Its  primary  object 
is,  of  course,  cooking,  and  though  it  does  this  satisfac- 
torily, the  amount  of  coal  wasted  in  the  process  is 
enormous.  Mr.  Barker  says  that  an  average  range 
would  use  in  the  oven  about  2  per  cent,  to  3  per  cent, 
of  the  available  heat,  a  very  "  economical  "  range  might 
use  5  per  cent.  "  The  total  efficiency  of  the  entire 
apparatus  when  it  is  all  in  use  at  the  same  time 
to  its  greatest  capacity,  including  the  hot  water 
supply,  the  hot  plate,  and  the  oven,  is  usually  about 
7  per  cent/'1  It  is,  in  fact,  efficient  only  as  a  producer 
of  vast  and  unnecessary  quantities  of  smoke.  And  yet 
such  ranges  are  still  commonly  fixed  in  new  houses ; 
even  in  housing  schemes  controlled  by  the  Ministry  of 
Health. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  fact  about  the  evidence 
given  by  the  numerous  witnesses  who  appeared  before 
the  Departmental  Committee  on  Smoke  Abatement 
was  the  great  difference  of  opinion  on  almost  every 

1  Domestic  Fuel  Consumption,  p.  38. 


26  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

point.  One  of  the  very  few  subjects  on  which  they 
practically  all  agreed  was  the  condemnation  of  the  open 
coal  range. 

The  back  boiler  behind  the  kitchen  range,  as  fitted 
in  the  ordinary  small  house,  is  not  only  wasteful  of  coal, 
but  most  unsatisfactory  in  providing  an  adequate 
supply  of  hot  water.  The  common  experience  is  that 
two  baths  can  never  be  taken  in  succession,  unless  a  very 
large  fire  is  made  up  in  the  evening,  and  "  bath-nights  " 
have  to  be  strictly  rationed  amongst  the  family.  No  one 
must  indulge  in  a  bath  when  the  fancy  takes  him.  A 
working-class  woman,  in  criticising  this  method  of 
obtaining  hot  water,  put  the  matter  to  one  of  the 
writers  very  concretely  :  she  said — "  When  my  two  boys 
come  home  from  football  on  Saturday  afternoon  they 
have  to  toss  up  to  settle  which  shall  have  a  bath." 

We  have  taken  the  opportunity  of  discussing  the 
subject  of  kitchen  ranges  with  large  numbers  of  working- 
class  women,  and  the  most  intelligent  and  practical 
amongst  them  tell  us  they  have  no  use  for  them  ;  they 
are  convinced  that  they  involve  much  labour  and  cause 
dirt  in  the  house,  and  they  greatly  prefer  to  cook  by  gas. 
A  small  garden  suburb  of  136  houses,  which  was  supposed 
to  be  an  up-to-date  housing  experiment,  was  started  in 
1908  on  the  outskirts  of  Manchester.  The  promoters 
of  the  scheme,  fearing  to  be  too  much  in  advance  of  the 
times,  put  kitchen  ranges  in  half  of  the  houses.  The 
tenants  were,  however,  in  advance  of  the  promoters  ; 
sixteen  of  them  had  the  kitchen  ranges  removed  and 
sitting-room  grates  installed  at  their  own  expense. 
Forty-two  more  now  say  they  would  like  to  have  their 
ranges  removed  at  once,  but  the  present  high  prices  make 
it  impracticable.  Fifty-three  families  have  been  without 
kitchen  ranges  since  the  beginning  of  their  tenancy,  and 
they  say  they  never  want  to  have  them.  On  the  whole 
estate  only  nine  tenants  could  be  found  who  expressed 
a  liking  for  kitchen  ranges  and  used  them  regularly. 


CRITICISM  OF  PRESENT  METHODS         27 

Now  is  THE  TIME  TO  ADOPT  BETTER  METHODS. 

The  British  householder  cherishes  his  open  fire  because 
it  is  cheerful  and  homely,  but,  above  all,  because  he  has 
always  been  accustomed  to  it ;  certainly  not  because 
he  has  critically  examined  its  efficiency  and  convinced 
himself,  after  comparing  it  with  other  methods,  that  it 
provides  the  best  possible  method  of  heating  his  room. 
We  hope  we  have  already  convinced  the  reader  that 
although  we  burn  a  prodigious  quantity  of  coal,  produce 
volumes  of  smoke,  and  give  ourselves  much  unnecessary 
labour,  we  really  do  not  make  a  great  success  of  the 
production  of  heat  for  domestic  purposes.  Knowledge 
has  now  reached  a  stage  which  justifies  us  in  stating 
unhesitatingly  that  our  methods  are  wasteful  and  the 
results  indifferent .  It  is  accordingly  only  common  sense 
that  we  should  set  to  work  energetically  to  try  to  do 
better. 

There  are  at  least  three  other  reasons  why  the  matter 
should  be  dealt  with  now  : — 

Firstly,  public  attention  has  been  called  to  the  whole 
question  by  the  excellent  report  of  the  Departmental 
Committee  on  Smoke  Abatement  which  has  just  been 
published. 

Secondly,  the  house-building  on  a  large  scale,  which  is 
now  going  on,  and  must  go  on  for  many  years  to  come, 
gives  a  unique  opportunity  for  new  methods,  if  only 
those  responsible  for  housing — the  Government,  local 
authorities  and  private  builders — will  rise  to  the  occasion 
and  design  houses  from  the  point  of  view  of  fuel  economy 
and  smokelessness.  In  the  past  it  was  urged,  with 
some  reason,  that  it  was  impracticable  to  attempt 
smoke  abatement  by  altering  existing  appliances  in- 
stalled in  houses  constructed  on  old-fashioned  lines. 
The  situation  is  now  changed  and  it  is  possible  to 
construct  houses  provided  with  better  methods  of 
heating  for  a  very  small  increased  capital  outlay,  and, 
in  some  cases,  even  for  less,  than  on  the  old-fashioned 
method. 


28  THE   SMOKELESS    CITY 

And  lastly,  the  present  time  is  opportune  because  the 
public  mind,  or,  at  any  rate  the  housewifely  mind,  is 
prepared  for  changes,  as  a  result  of  war  conditions  and 
subsequent  events.  It  is  a  very  ill  wind  indeed  that 
blows  nobody  any  good  at  all,  and  coal  rationing,  high 
prices,  and  strikes  have  prepared  people  for  considering 
fuel  economy  without  the  prejudice  they  would  have 
exhibited  in  pre-war  days. 

We  should  like  at  this  stage  to  reassure  the  anxious 
reader.  We  do  not  wish  to  propose  legislation  pro- 
hibiting the  use  of  the  coal  fire,  even  in  new  houses. 
Although  the  inhabitants  of  all  the  countries  in  the  world 
outside  the  British  Isles  seem  to  get  on  passably  well 
without  open  fires,  yet  their  total  abolition  would  be  too 
much  of  a  wrench  here.  What  we  suggest  is  that  they 
should  be  cut  down  to  a  minimum,  regarding  them  as 
luxuries,  to  be  used  sparingly  as  other  luxuries  are. 

The  next  three  chapters  will  be  devoted  to  discussion 
of  improved  methods  of  supplying  heat  for  the  three 
domestic  purposes :  warming  rooms,  cooking  and 
heating  water ;  and  to  the  consideration  of  the  question 
as  to  how  far  it  is  possible  to  combine  comfort  and 
efficiency  and  smokelessness. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

WARMING  THE   HOUSE. 

BEFORE  discussing  the  merits  of  different  systems  of 
heating  it  will  be  as  well  to  attempt  to  explain  roughly 
what  conditions  are  necessary  if  a  room  is  to  be  com- 
fortable for  the  average  person  to  live  in.  This  depends 
on  complicated  physiological  and  psychological  factors 
which  are  only  just  beginning  to  be  understood,  but 
some  of  the  principal  conditions  can  be  quite  simply 
explained. 

RADIATION  AND  CONVECTION. 

Firstly,  it  is  necessary  to  understand  clearly  the  two 
methods  by  which  a  room  may  be  warmed.  In  con- 
vection a  hot  body  heats  the  air  round  it ;  the  air  rises 
and  in  its  turn  heats  other  things  in  the  room.  This 
is  the  method  employed  in  central  heating,  where  the 
cold  air  coming  into  contact  with  hot  "  radiators  "  is 
warmed  by  the  contact,  rises,  and  gradually  warms  the 
whole  air  in  the  room,  and  then  the  walls  and  furniture. 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  name  "  radiator  "  is  most 
misleading,  as  so-called  radiators  give  out  their  heat 
almost  entirely  by  convection.  "  Con  vector  "  would  be 
a  much  more  correct  name. 

The  other  method  of  warming  is  by  radiation.  Heat 
is  emitted  from  a  hot  body  by  means  of  rays  of  radiant 
energy*  which  pass  through  the  air  without  warming  it 
at  all,  but  on  impinging  on  a  solid  body  become  converted 
into  heat,  which  is  largely  absorbed  by  that  body.  A 
portion  of  the  radiant  energy  may,  however,  be  reflected 
from  the  surface,  just  as  light  is  reflected  ;  and  in  some 
cases  a  portion  may  pass  through  the  solid  body,  as, 

29 


30  THE    SMOKELESS   CITY 

for  instance,  the  heat  rays  from  the  sun  pass  through  a 
glass  window. 

The  difference  between  a  space  heated  by  radiation 
and  convection  respectively  is  perhaps  best  explained 
by  comparing  the  exhilarating  conditions  of  a  sunny 
winter  day  in  the  Swiss  Alps,  where,  although  the  air 
may  be  below  freezing  point,  the  radiation  from  the  sun 
keeps  one  comfortably  warm,  with  the  relatively  stuffy 
and  depressing  conditions  of  a  hotel  which  is  wTarmed  by 
a  hot  air  supply  ;  in  the  former  case  the  air  is  very  cold, 
and  the  body  is  kept  warm  by  radiation  ;  in  the  latter 
the  air  is  warm,  and  there  is  no  radiant  heat. 

Although  the  matter  is  by  no  means  fully  understood 
it  is  now  generally  agreed  that  the  best  conditions  for 
comfort  in  a  room  involve  moderately  warm  air,  com- 
bined with  radiant  heat,  and,  of  course,  adequate 
ventilation.  This  is  generally  best  obtained  by  a  central 
heating  system  to  warm  the  air,  combined  with  a  coal 
or  gas  fire  to  supply  radiant  heat  and  ventilation. 

"  DRYING  THE  AIR/' 

It  is  necessary  to  say  a  few  words  on  this  subject,  as 
many  people,  who  ought  to  know  better,  suffer  from 
the  strangest  delusions  about  it.  The  fundamental  point 
to  grasp  is  that  no  method  of  heating  can,  under  any 
circumstances,  increase  or  reduce  the  amount  of  moisture 
in  the  air. 

The  idea  that  the  air  is  dried  by  certain  kinds  of 
heating  apparatus  has  probably  arisen  from  two  causes. 
The  higher  the  temperature  to  which  air  is  heated,  the 
greater  is  the  quantity  of  water  vapour  that  it  can 
carry.  So  that  as  air  gets  hotter  it  becomes  "drier," 
relatively  to  its  total  capacity  for  carrying  moisture ; 
and  air,  which  when  cool  is  pleasant  to  breathe,  may  be 
uncomfortably  dry  when  hot .  Heating  air  may  thus  be  said 
to  dry  it,  though  scientifically  it  does  nothing  of  the  sort. 
.  In. this  sense  the  air  is  "  dried  "  when  a  room  is  heated 
by  convection,  that  is,  by  central  heating,  but  not  when 


WARMING    THE    HOUSE  31 

it  is  heated  by  radiation,  that  is,  by  a  coal  or  gas  fire. 
The  widespread  belief  that  gas  fires  dry  the  air  is  due  to 
a  quite  different  cause.  If  a  gas  fire  is  badly  installed, 
some  of  the  burnt  gases  may  escape  into  the  air  of  the 
room.  These  affect  the  throat  unpleasantly  and  produce 
the  feelings  which  are  so  often  attributed  to  dryness  of 
the  air.  Some  years  ago  it  was  quite  common  to  find 
such  carelessly  fixed  fires  ;  nowadays,  the  majority  of 
gas  undertakings  thoroughly  understand  the  need  of 
careful  installation  of  all  fires  to  avoid  this  risk,  and  it 
rarely  occurs ;  though,  unfortunately,  not  all  private 
firms  of  gas  fitters  realise  the  importance  of  paying 
careful  attention  to  the  ventilation  of  gas  fires.  Should 
trouble  be  experienced,  a  complaint  to  the  gas  office  will 
very  quickly  cause  the  trouble  to  be  remedied.  The 
delusion  as  to  gas  fires  drying  the  air  affords  an  interest- 
ing illustration  of  the  extent  to  which  an  individual's 
feeling  of  comfort  in  a  room  depends  on  psychological 
factors.  The  feeling  of  dryness  is  often  removed  by 
placing  a  saucer  of  water  in  front  of  the  fire.  Now  we 
have  already  explained  that  it  is  utterly  impossible  for 
any  drying  of  the  air  to  take  place.  Further,  if  it  had 
taken  place,  it  would  be  equally  impossible  for  the  saucer 
of  water  to  remove  it,  as  the  small  amount  of  water 
vapour  evaporated  would  certainly  go  up  the  chimney. 
And  yet  it  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  the  saucer  often 
does  remove  the  feeling  of  dryness  ! 

A  curious  instance  of  prejudice  against  the  use  of  gas, 
entirely  without  any  basis  in  fact,  was  told  at  a  smoke 
abatement  meeting  in  Manchester  by  a  member  of  the 
audience.  She  said,  "  I  am  a  confectioner  and  I  have 
always  used  a  gas  oven  for  my  baking.  The  other  day 
one  of  my  best  customers,  whom  I  had  served  for  over 
nine  years,  gave  me  a  big  order  for  a  birthday  party 
and  said  as  she  was  leaving,  "  You  know,  Mrs.  G.,  I 
always  give  you  my  orders  because  I  should  die  if  I  ate 
anything  that  was  cooked  by  gas  !  " 


32  THE   SMOKELESS   CITY 

VENTILATION. 

In  any  system  of  warming  good  ventilation  is  of  the 
greatest  importance.  A  coal  fire  generally  gives  several 
times  as  much  ventilation  as  is  necessary  for  health, 
thus  tending  to  cause  draughts  and  involving  extra  cost 
for  heating.  A  gas  fire,  connected  to  proper  flues, 
creates  less  draught  than  a  coal  fire,  but,  if  well  fitted, 
gives  ample  ventilation.  An  anthracite  stove  gives 
much  less,  and  in  central  heating  special  means  have 
to  be  taken  to  secure  proper  ventilation,  which  is  by 
no  means  easy. 

It  has  recently  been  shown  that  it  is  not  so  much  the 
chemical  purity  of  the  air  that  matters  as  the  fact  that 
it  should  be  moving.  The  movement  of  the  air  must 
of  course  be  short  of  producing  a  "  draught  "  that  leads 
to  the  occupant  of  a  room  closing  up  the  openings 
completely.  A  stagnant,  warm  atmosphere  is  most 
undesirable,  and  it  is  well  seen  in  America  that  children, 
especially,  suffer  from  such  conditions 

If  the  weather  is  not  excessively  cold,  most  people, 
educated  in  modern  hygienic  methods,  would  keep  a 
window  partly  open.  If  the  weather  is  too  cold  for  this, 
or  the  window  so  inconveniently  placed  that  ventilation 
is  impracticable  without  draughts,  it  is  possible  to 
freshen  the  air  of  a  room  by  opening  windows 
at  intervals.  Curtains,  even  of  washable  cotton  material, 
have  a  considerable  effect  in  lessening  draughts  from 
open  windows.  It  is  usually  in  the  evenings  that  rooms 
get  stuffy,  and  the  curtains,  which  are  generally  drawn 
then,  can  be  arranged  to  direct  the  in-coming  air  so  that 
it  does  not  fall  directly  on  the  occupants  of  the  room. 

Windows  constructed  to  ventilate  without  draughts, 
as  far  as  possible,  should  be  a  feature  of  all  houses,  and 
special  attention  should  be  paid  to  this  point  in  houses 
planned  for  central  heating.  The  casement  window, 
now  so  much  in  vogue,  should  always  be  provided  with 
top  lights,  made  to  open  in  such  a  way  as  to  admit  fresh 
air  at  a  moderate  rate,  should  the  weather  be  unsuitable 
for  opening  the  whole  window. 


WARMING   THE    HOUSE  33 

THE  BEST  USE  OF  THE  COAL  FIRE. 
The  Interim  Report  of  the  Departmental  Committee 
on  Smoke  Abatement  has  recommended  that  not  more 
than  one,  or,  at  the  most,  two  coal  grates  should  be 
fixed  in  any  house.  Accepting  this  recommendation  as  a 
wise  compromise  in  view  of  the  strong  popular  prejudice 
in  favour  of  open  fires,  we  shall  discuss  alternative 
methods  of  heating  to  replace  the  coal  fires  omitted, 
their  relative  cost  as  regards  installation  and  working 
expenses,  and  the  extent  to  which  they  will  severally 
reduce  the  amount  of  smoke  from  dwelling  houses. 

But,  before  dealing  with  alternatives  to  the  coal  fire, 
something  should  be  said  about  the  coal  fire  itself,  and 
the  conditions  which  render  it  most  efficient  and  least 
harmful,  if  one  or  two  coal  grates  are  to  be  fitted  in  each 
house. 

The  following  conclusions  are  based  mainly  on  Dr. 

Fishenden's  work  : — 

(i).  The  slow  combustion  or  bar-less  type  of  grate 
gives  no  more  heat  into  the  room  than  the  old  types, 
nor  is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that  it  emits  less 
smoke  per  pound  of  coal  burnt.  Its  great  advantage  is 
that  the  rate  of  burning  can  be  regulated,  and  when  the 
coal  is  burnt  more  slowly,  less  smoke  is,  of  course, 
produced. 

(2).  The  most  important  thing  about  a  coal  fire 
is  draught  regulation.  A  strong  draught  is  needed  to 
enable  the  fire  to  be  started  easily  ;  then,  when  once  it 
is  going  well,  half  the  draught  or  less,  is  often  ample, 
and  causes  slower  burning,  and  in  many  cases  actually 
a  warmer  room.  The  draught  must  be  regulated  in 
two  places  to  be  effective  ;  below  the  fire,  to  vary  the 
amount  of  air  actually  passing  through  the  fire,  and  in 
the  chimney,  to  vary  the  chimney  draught,  so  affecting 
both  the  air  drawn  through  the  fire  and  the  supple- 
mentary air  which  passes  above  the  fire  direct  to  the 
chimney. 


34  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

Both  these  draught  regulators  should  be  fully  open 
for  lighting,  and  partly  closed  later.  With  well  designed 
fittings,  intelligently  used,  the  quantity  of  coal  burnt 
could  be  largely  reduced  without  in  any  way  making 
the  room  less  comfortable. 

(3).  Chimney  flues  should  always  be  built  on  inner 
walls.  On  an  outer  wall  as  much  as  25  per  cent,  of  the 
heat  in  the  coal  may  be  lost  to  the  open  air  ;  on  an 
inner  wall  that  loss  is  avoided,  the  heat  going  to  warm 
the  walls  of  the  upper  rooms  in  the  house. 

(4).  A  mixture  of  coal  and  coke,  about  half  and  half, 
forms  a  very  good  fuel  for  the  open  grate.  It  is  easy  to 
light,  it  burns  well,  but  a  little  more  slowly  than  unmixed 
coal,  and  is  cheaper.  Also,  of  course,  there  is  much  less 
smoke. 

ADVANTAGES  OF  THE  GAS  FIRE. 

The  first  alternative  to  the  coal  fire  that  suggests  itself 
will  naturally  be  the  gas  fire. 

The  gas  fire  has  many  very  great  advantages.  To  begin 
with  it  is  entirely  smokeless.  It  involves  no  trouble  in 
the  form  of  laying  fires,  carrying  coals,  or  clearing  up 
ashes,  and  needs  no  attention.  It  can  be  turned  on  when 
required  and  reaches  its  maximum  heat  within  a  few 
minutes  of  being  lighted,  unlike  the  coal  fire,  which 
requires  about  an  hour.  For  this  reason  a  gas  fire 
is  particularly  suitable  for  intermittent  use  and  when 
heat  is  required  quickly.  The  modern  gas  fire  being 
vertical  sends  the  heat  towards  the  persons  in  the  room, 
while  the  horizontal  coal  fire  directs  it  upwards  towards 
the  ceiling,  where  it  is  largely  wasted.  The  gas  fire  has 
a  considerable  ventilating  effect,  but  less  than  a  coal  fire. 
This,  on  the  whole,  is  an  advantage,  for  the  excessive 
air  currents  caused  by  the  coal  fire  are  one  of  its  draw- 
backs. 

OBJECTIONS    RAISED    AGAINST    GAS    FIRES. 

There  are  three  principal  reasons  why  many  people 
prefer  coal  fires  to  gas  ;  they  allege  that  the  gas  fire  is 


WARMING    THE    HOUSE  35 

unattractive,  expensive  and  dangerous.  The  first  is  a 
matter  of  personal  preference  and  custom.  The  second 
is  true  for  continuous  burning,  but  not  for  intermittent 
use.  The  third  is  a  popular  belief  due  to  a  newspaper 
stunt,  and,  like  many  such  stunts,  is  untrue.  Let  us 
deal  with  these  three  points  separately,  or  rather  with 
the  last  two,  as  it  would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  discuss 
the  first,  which  is  purely  a  matter  of  personal  taste. 

COST  OF  GAS  FIRES. 

For  continuous  burning  a  gas  fire  is,  at  present  prices, 
much  more  expensive  than  a  coal  fire.  With  coal  at 
405.  a  ton,  and  gas  at  43.  a  thousand  cubic  feet, 
one  penny  will  buy  60,000  heat  units  in  the  form  of  coal, 
and  10,000  in  the  form  of  gas.1  Taking  the  whole  of 
the  heat  given  to  the  room  by  a  coal  and  a  gas  fire 
respectively,  including  both  radiated  and  convected 
heat,  the  former  will  give  about  30  per  cent,  of  its 
available  heat,  the  latter  60  per  cent.  That  is  to  say, 
that  the  number  of  heat  units  actually  delivered  into 
the  room  for  one  penny  would  be,  in  the  case  of  coal, 
18,000  ;  in  the  case  of  gas,  6,000.  In  other  words, 
for  continuous  heating  at  these  prices,  it  costs  three 
times  as  much  to  deliver  a  given  number  of  heat  units 
into  a  room  by  a  gas  fire  as  by  a  coal  fire.  But  it  would 
not  be  quite  fair  to  say  that  it  costs  three  times  as  much 
to  provide  equally  comfortable  conditions,  for  two  rea- 
sons. Firstly,  extra  heat  is  needed  to  counteract  the 
excessive  draught  of  the  coal  fire ;  and  secondly,  a  larger 
proportion  of  the  radiation  from  the  coal  fire  is,  as 
already  explained,  wasted  by  being  directed  at  the 
ceiling,  where  it  is  useless.  We  have  not  the  knowledge 
to  measure  the  importance  of  these  two  factors  ;  but 
they  certainly  mean  that  for  equal  comfort  the  gas  fire 
will  be  distinctly  less  than  three  times  as  expensive  as 
coal. 

1  For  purposes  of  measurement,  heat  is  divided  into  units,  and  these 
are  called  "  British  Thermal  Units."  A  B.T.U.  of  heat  is  the  amount 
which  is  required  to  raise  one  pound  of  water  i  degree  on  the  thermo- 
meter, or  one  ounce  of  water  through  16  degrees. 


36  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

COST  OF  GAS  FIRES  FOR  INTERMITTENT  HEATING. 

When  heat  is  required  only  for  a  short  time,  the  gas 
fire  is  often  much  cheaper  than  the  coal  fire.  The 
former,  with  gas  at  45.  a  thousand  cubic  feet,  costs  from 
id.  to  2d.  an  hour,  according  to  size  and  pressure, 
whether  used  for  a  long  or  a  short  time.  The  coal  fire, 
on  the  other  hand,  costs  a  certain  minimum  amount  to 
set  going,  for  however  short  a  time  it  may  be  required. 
This  is  a  matter  of  great  importance  for  anybody  who  has 
to  decide  which  kind  of  fire  to  install.  We  have  ac- 
cordingly made  very  careful  inquiries,  as  the  result  of 
which  we  work  out  the  minimum  cost  of  lighting  a  coal 
fire,  at  the  level  of  prices  prevailing  in  April,  1922,  as 
follows  : — 

Minimum  cost  of  lighting  a  coal  fire. 
Laying  fire        . .          . .          . .         4  minutes. 

Cleaning  grate 5 

Carrying  coals  and  ashes        . .         2         ,, 
"  Coaxing  "  fire  to  burn         . .         2         ,, 

Total  labour  employed         13         ,, 

The  full  cost  of  a  servant,  including  wages,  food, 
house-room,  washing,  firing,  and  insurance,  is  at  least 
£104  per  annum.  Assuming  that  she  does  an  8-hour 
day  all  the  year  round,  and  allowing  nothing  for  illness, 
holidays  and  days  out,  the  cost  of  13  minutes  labour 
is  1*9  pence. 

We  consider  the  estimate  for  labour  represents  a  fair 
general  average.  While  a  modern  bar-less  grate  might 
be  cleaned  in  less  time  than  we  have  allowed,  an  old- 
fashioned  one,  requiring  blackleading,  would  take  much 
longer.  And,  although,  theoretically,  a  well-laid  fire 
should  burn  readily,  it  often  happens  that,  owing  to 
weather  conditions  and  other  causes,  a  considerable 
time  is  taken  up  in  getting  the  fire  started.  We  have 
allowed  no  margin  of  time  for  getting  from  one  room  to 


WARMING   THE    HOUSE  37 

another,  and   the   total   time   taken   will,  in   practice, 
probably  be  much  greater  than  we  have  allowed. 

Seven  pounds  of  coal  (costing  say  2s.  6d.  a  cwt.)  are 
required  to  make  a  good  fire,  which  will  last  for  about 
2j  hours,  and  would  then  require  replenishing  if  kept 
burning  for  a  longer  time.     The  cost  of  the  wood  for 
lighting  would  be  approximately  a  half-penny. 

The  total  cost  of  lighting  the  fire  would  then  work  out 
thus : — 

Labour  ..          ..         ..         1-9  pence. 

Cost  of  wood     . .          . .          . .  -5 

Cost  of  coal       . .          . .          . .         1-9      ,, 


A  gas  fire  in  the  parlour  or  one  of  the  bedrooms  of  a 
working-class  house  would  be  a  small  one,  probably  with 
six  burners,  and  with  gas  at  45.  a  thousand  would  cost 
i  Jd.  per  hour  if  used  at  full  pressure  ;  so  that  the 
relative  cost  of  coal  and  gas  fires  would  be  as  follows  : — 

Length  of  time.  Coal  Fire.  Gas  Fire. 

Hours.  Pence.  Pence. 

i 

2 

3 
4 
5 
6 

7 
8 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  table  that,  if  a  fire  is 
required  for  one  or  two  hours  only,  gas  is  much  cheaper 
than  coal.  If  the  fire  is  required  for  4  hours,  the  costs 
of  gas  and  coal  are  approximately  the  same  ;  if  for  more 
than  4  hours  the  coal  fire  is  cheaper. 

A  great  advantage  of  the  gas  fire  is  that  it  can  be  used 
as  wanted  for  short  periods,  while  the  coal  fire  must 


4-3 
4-3 
4-5 

1-25 
2-5 
375 

4-9 

5-3 
57 
6-1 

6*5 

5 
6-25 

7-5 

875 

10 

38  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

either  burn  continuously  or  be  relaid  and  relighted. 
Heat  is  frequently  required  in  a  room  for  an  hour  in 
the  morning,  again  for  the  middle-day  meal  and  then 
perhaps  for  two  hours  or  so  in  the  evening. 

It  may  be  argued  that  the  housewife  lays  a  coal  fire 
without  charge,  and  that  labour  ought  accordingly  not 
to  be  counted  in  a  working-class  house.  This,  again,  is 
a  matter  for  consideration  in  each  individual  case,  but 
when  the  labour  is  paid  for  at  its  fair  value,  as  in  hotels, 
boarding  houses,  hostels,  etc.,  the  coal  fire  figures  in 
our  table  are  definitely  on  the  low  side. 

ALLEGED  DANGERS  OF  GAS. 

There  has  recently  been  an  active  "  stunt  "  in  a  section 
of  the  press  regarding  the  alleged  serious  risk  of  accident 
through  leakage  of  gas  in  houses  fitted  with  gas  fires  or 
cookers.  It  has  been  suggested  that  gas,  as  now  sold, 
contains  a  larger  amount  than  formerly  of  the  poisonous 
carbon-monoxide ;  that  the  characteristic  pungent  smell 
of  gas  is  now  less  strong  than  before;  and  that  accordingly 
a  leakage  is  more  dangerous  and  less  likely  to  be  detected. 
If  any  fatal  accident  has  happened  it  has  been  very 
prominently  reported  in  the  press,  both  when  it  occurred 
and  again  at  the  inquest,  and  the  result  is  that  there  is 
now  a  good  deal  of  uneasiness,  quite  enough  to  make 
people  hesitate  about  installing  new  gas  fires. 

What  are  the  facts  ? 

(1)  Gas  has  been  used  in  this  country  for  100  years. 

(2)  It  is  installed  in  many  districts  in  almost  every 

house. 

(3)  It  is,  and  always  has  been,  poisonous  and  therefore 

dangerous  to  breathe  when  unburnt. 

(4)  The  only  danger  is  from  leakage.     This  danger  is 

decreasing  because  the  fitting  is  better  done  than 
formerly,  and  because  people,  especially  ser- 
vants, have  more  experience  in  managing  gas 
fittings. 


WARMING    THE    HOUSE  39 

(5)  It    is    probable    that    an    increased    percentage   of 

carbon-monoxide  is  used  in  some  gas  under- 
takings. This  does  not  convert  a  safe  gas 
into  a  poisonous  one,  but  makes  the  gas  more 
quickly  dangerous  if  breathed  in  a  closed  room. 
Even  so,  the  gas  sold  in  Washington  has  twice 
as  much  carbon-monoxide  as  any  sold  in  this 
country ;  and  the  Bureau  of  Public  Health 
for  that  city  has  stated  that  no  detrimental 
effect  on  the  health  of  the  inhabitants  has 
resulted. 

(6)  Gas  is  never,  and  could  not  be,  sold  without  the 

characteristically  pungent  and  instantly  notice- 
able smell,  which  is  the  real  safeguard. 

(7)  Deaths  caused  by  gas  represent  2  per  annum  per 

million  of  the  population  ;  deaths  from  railway 
accidents  are  22  per  annum,  or  n  times  more. 
Street  accidents  in  London  represent  100  deaths 
per  annum  per  million  of  the  population  of 
that  city.  Fatalities  from  coal  fires  are  much 
more  numerous  than  from  gas,  but  the  public 
have  grown  used  to  them.  The  danger  is, 
however,  recognised  in  the  Children's  Act  of  1908, 
which  makes  failure  to  provide  a  fireguard  a 
punishable  offence  in  cases  where  children  have 
been  fatally  burnt.  In  the  year  1919  (the  last 
for  which  the  Registrar  General's  complete 
figures  are  available)  no  less  than  992  inquests 
were  held  on  children  under  5,  who  had  been 
fatally  burnt  through  accidents  with  fires  (con- 
flagrations excluded) . 

Apart  from  danger  to  life,  the  destruction  of 
property  through  coal  fires  is  so  great  that  anyone 
who  consulted  fire  insurance  statistics  might  have 
reason  for  hesitating  before  fixing  coal  grates  in 
a  new  house.  One  large  insurance  company  alone, 
in  the  last  quarter  of  1921,  dealt  with  no  less  than 


40  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

876  claims  for  losses  directly  traceable  to  fireplaces 
and  paid  £3,602  in  compensation.  These  losses 
were  apportioned  as  follows  : — 

Coals  falling  from  fire    ...     265  claims. 

Wood  falling  from  fire  ...       51  claims. 

Sparks  from  the  fire  ...  560  claims. 
The  estimated  yearly  loss  for  the  United  Kingdom 
based  on  the  statistics  from  this  one  company, 
which  has  about  4  per  cent,  of  the  total  insurance 
business,  would  amount  to  no  less  than  87,000 
claims,  and  a  money  loss  through  accidents  by 
fireplaces  of  over  £360,000. 

(8)  The  death  rate  from  gas  poisoning  is  in  no  way 
comparable  to  the  saving  of  life  which  would 
result  if  all  coal  were  converted  into  gas  and  coke 
before  being  burnt.  True  a  few  houses  now 
without  them  would  then  have  gas  fittings,  and 
the  risk  of  gas  poisoning  would  be  increased  to  an 
infinitesimal  extent ;  but  the  air  would  be  clear 
and  free  from  fogs,  the  general  level  of  health 
would  be  higher,  and  thousands  of  lives  would  be 
saved. 

PRECAUTIONS  THAT  SHOULD  BE  TAKEN  WITH  GAS. 

(1)  Every   householder   should   make   sure   that   his 
gas  fittings  are  in  good  condition  and  free  from  leaks 
and  should  call  in  an  authorised  gas  fitter  if  any  escape 
of  gas  is  detected.     Those   people  are   simply  asking 
for  trouble,  who,   through  misplaced  economy,  attach 
gas  rings  and  heaters  to  lighting  brackets  by  means  of 
rubber  tubes,  which  do    not   fit    properly   and    which 
quickly   perish   and   become    porous. 

(2)  To  avoid  the  risk  of  children  interfering  with  the 
taps  of  gas  fires,  they  should  be  removable,  so  that  they 
can  be  placed  out  of  reach. 

(3)  All  gas  fires  should  be  fitted  with  wire  guards,  which 
can  be  obtained  for  a  few  shillings. 


WARMING    THE    HOUSE  41 

USING  THE  GAS  FIRE  TO  THE  BEST  ADVANTAGE. 

While  the  all-gas  house  is  at  present  not  practicable 
except  where  expense  is  no  object,  the  use  of  some  gas 
fires  in  all  houses  is  strongly  to  be  recommended.  The 
Manchester  Corporation  Housing  Committee  has  made  a 
careful  study  of  the  whole  subject,  and,  after  receiving 
evidence  from  architects,  engineers,  builders,  and 
committees  representing  housewives,  has,  on  the  advice 
of  its  own  experts,  built  its  new  houses  with  one  coal 
fire  in  the  living  room,  another  in  the  bedroom  directly 
above  the  living-room,  and  gas  fires  in  the  parlour  and 
other  bedrooms.  There  is  a  gas  cooker  and  a  gas  copper 
in  the  scullery,  and  water  is  heated  by  a  boiler  behind 
the  coal  fire  in  the  living-room.  Some  other  municipali- 
ties have  also  adopted  this  system.  From  the  landlord's 
point  of  view  certain  definite  economies  are  effected 
in  this  way  as  regards  capital  expenditure.  The  gas 
fire  needs  only  a  4}  inch  flue  in  place  of  the  9  inch  flue 
required  by  the  coal  fire,  and  the  chimney  stack  can  be 
shorter.  Hence  the  saving  of  an  appreciable  amount 
of  materials  and  bricklayers'  labour.  By  judicious 
planning,  where  houses  adjoin  one  another,  the  flues  from 
the  coal  grates  can  be  taken  into  one  chimney  stack, 
and  those  from  the  gas  fires  into  another.  The  cost  of  a 
gas  fireplace  is  rather  higher  than  that  of  the  type  of 
bedroom  grate  used  in  government  housing  schemes, 
but  the  saving  in  brick-work  and  forming  of  hearths 
can  be  set  against  this,  and  houses  built  with  a  majority 
of  gas  fires  work  out  cheaper  than  those  with  coal 
grates  in  every  room. 

Owing  to  the  slighter  projection  of  the  chimney 
breasts  in  a  room  constructed  with  a  gas  fire,  there  is  a 
saving  of  floor  space,  and  this  is  of  considerable  im- 
portance now-a-days  when,  owing  to  the  high  cost  of 
building,  the  tendency  is  to  make  small  rooms,  not  only 
in  municipal  housing  schemes,  but  in  houses  built  by 
private  enterprise. 


42  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

This  method  of  building  is  also  far  better  for  the 
tenant  than  the  all-coal  house.  The  parlour  is  a  room 
that  is  only  used  occasionally,  generally  for  a  short  time. 
A  gas  fire  in  this  case  will  not  only  save  labour,  and 
cost  actually  less  in  fuel,  but  can  be  ready  and  cheerful 
at  a  moment's  notice  when  wanted,  whereas  a  coal  fire 
means,  probably,  some  time  and  annoyance  in  lighting, 
and  then  nearly  an  hour's  wait  before  it  is  fit  to  sit  by. 

Similar  arguments  apply  to  the  bedroom.  If  it  is 
necessary  to  warm  a  bedroom  before  a  child,  invalid, 
or  elderly  person  goes  to  bed,  a  gas  fire  which  can  be  put 
on  for  half-a-hour  beforehand  and  turned  off  when  the 
person  is  in  bed,  is  obviously  better  than  a  coal  fire. 
And  for  the  luxuriously  inclined  a  gas  fire  is  a  boon  for 
dressing  by  on  a  cold  morning. 

There  is  still  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the 
respective  merits  of  gas  and  coal  in  case  of  illness.  With 
a  properly  constructed  and  installed  gas  fire  we  have  no 
doubt  whatever  of  its  suitability  ;  it  is  clean  and  creates 
no  dust,  a  most  important  point  in  case  of  severe  illness  I 
when  it  may  not  be  possible  to  clean  out  the  room  pro- 
perly for  weeks  on  end  ;  it  requires  no  attention,  and 
the  patient  is  not  disturbed  by  the  noise  of  putting  on 
coals  ;  it  can  be  regulated  at  any  moment  to  give  exactly 
the  amount  of  heat  required  ;  and  it  ventilates  the 
room  thoroughly  well.  One  of  the  authors  has  recently 
gone  through  a  severe  illness,  and  he  spent  six  weeks  in 
bed  in  a  room  heated  by  a  gas  fire,  which  was  burning 
continuously ,  day  and  night ,  for  the  whole  period .  While 
it  would  be  too  much  to  attribute  recovery  to  the  gas 
fire,  yet  the  conditions  in  the  room,  as  regards  heating 
and  ventilation  and  cleanliness,  were  certainly  better 
than  could  have  been  obtained  by  a  coal  fire  or  by  any 
other  method. 

In  our  opinion,  where  central  heating  or  central  hot 
water  cannot  be  installed,  the  heating  methods  adopted 


WARMING   THE    HOUSE  43 

by  the  Manchester  Corporation  are  the  best  practicable, 
with  two  exceptions  : — 

Firstly,  the  method  of  heating  the  water  by  a  back 
boiler  is  not  really  satisfactory,  and  there  are  now  much 
improved  methods  available  which  will  be  described  in 
Chapter  VI. 

Secondly,  we  should  prefer  to  install  one  coal  fire  only, 
in  the  living  room,  and  to  put  gas  fires  in  the  parlour 
and  all  bedrooms.  This  would,  if  anything,  be  cheaper 
as  regards  capital  cost ;  would  be  as  convenient  for  the 
tenant,  and  would  mean  a  more  nearly  smokeless  house. 
A  number  of  tenants  in  the  new  Manchester  houses  have 
actually  asked  to  have  this  alteration  made  and  the 
Corporation  has,  when  requested,  fixed  an  additional 
gas  fire,  leaving  one  coal  grate  only  in  each  house. 

ANTHRACITE  STOVES. 

These  are  smokeless  and  Very  efficient,  and  are  ex- 
tremely useful  where  heat  is  required  continuously  over 
long  periods.  They  can  be  kept  burning  night  and  day 
throughout  a  whole  winter,  if  necessary,  and  require 
little  attention.  They  are  not  as  pleasant  as  an  open 
fire  and  they  have  little  ventilating  effect.  We  do  not 
think  they  are  suitable  for  cottages  though  they  might 
be  placed  in  the  hall  of  a  somewhat  larger  type  of  house 
to  give  warmth  generally  throughout,  the  rooms  them- 
selves being  heated  by  gas  fires.  They  are  mostly  suited 
to  countries  in  which  winter  is  constant  and  severe,  such 
as  Canada,  North  Germany  and  Russia. 

CENTRAL  HEATING. 

Central  heating  is  by  far  the  most  economical  method 
of  heating  large  buildings.  Sometimes  supplemented  by 
gas  or  coal  fires,  it  is  almost  universally  found  in  all  new 
hotels,  blocks  of  offices,  etc.,  and  in  many  large  private 
houses.  In  such  cases  it  is  not  expensive  to  install  and 
is  by  far  the  cheapest  method  of  warming.  In  the  small 
house  the  position  is  different.  Where  the  dwellings  are 


44  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

built  in  blocks,  as  in  the  Scottish  tenement  houses,  and 
in  most  Continental  working-class  housing  schemes, 
central  heating  is  applicable.  But  when  cottages  are 
built  on  the  new  English  plan,  in  blocks  of  two  or  four,  and 
not  more  than  12  to  the  acre,  the  cost  of  the  connexions 
between  the  houses  is  so  great  that  the  problem  of  a 
common  central  heating  system  becomes  much  more 
difficult. 

We  propose  first  to  give  in  a  general  way  the  case  for 
and  against  central  heating,  and  then  to  consider  whether 
and  how  it  can  be  applied  to  new  working  class  houses. 

ADVANTAGES  OF  CENTRAL  HEATING. 
The  advantages  of  central  heating  are  : — 

(a)  The  fuel  used  is  almost  always,  and  should  always 

be,  coke.  Central  heating  is,  therefore,  smoke- 
less. 

(b)  It  requires  very  little  labour,  as  there  is  only  one 

fire  to  attend  to,  and  that  at  long  intervals. 

(c)  The  whole  house  is  warmed.     In  the  small  house, 

dependent  on  coal  fires  for  heating,  it  is  one  or  at 
most  two  rooms  only  which  are  warmed. 

(d)  Each  individual  room  is  thoroughly  warmed  through- 

out. In  a  coal  heated  room  only  the  occupants 
near  the  fire  are  really  warm  ;  the  others, 
according  to  their  positions,  are  more  or  less  cold  ; 
and  some  may  be  so  placed  as  to  miss  the  radiation 
from  the  fire  entirely,  but  get  the  full  blast  of  the 
excessive  ventilation  which  it  causes. 

(e)  Central  heating,  where  it  can  be  installed  with  success, 

is  by  far  the  cheapest  way  of  warming  a  house. 
Mr.  Barker  estimates  that  the  cost  in  fuel  is 
approximately  one-third  of  that  of  a  coal  fire  ;  and 
that  central  heating  can  be  kept  on  night  and  day, 
as  against  burning  coal  fires  in  the  day  only,  at  a 
cost  in  fuel  not  exceeding  half  of  that  required  by 
the  coal  fires. 


WARMING    THE    HOUSE  45 

DRAWBACKS  OF  CENTRAL  HEATING. 
On  the  other  hand   certain  drawbacks    are    alleged 

against    central    heating  : — 

(a)  It  is  said  to  dry  the  air,  to  cause  feelings  of  stuffiness 
and  discomfort,  and  sometimes  to  cause  an 
unpleasant  smell  of  "  burnt  air."  This  smell 
only  arises  with  high  temperature  steam  heated 
radiators,  which  partly  burn  some  of  the  organic 
matter  in  the  air.  Installations  for  small  houses 
are  almost  always  designed  for  hot  water  circu- 
lation, so  that  the  maximum  temperature  is 
below  the  boiling  point  of  water,  and  this  trouble 
cannot  arise. 

The  stuffy  feeling  is  a  more  real  difficulty. 
Central  heating  warms  the  rooms  by  heating  the 
air,  and  there  is  practically  no  radiated  heat. 
As  soon  as  the  temperature  gets  too  high,  es- 
pecially if  the  ventilation  is  not  good,  the  feeling 
of  stuffiness  appears. 

Stuffiness  can  be  avoided  by  noticing  when  the 
room  is  getting  too  hot  and  then  opening  a  win- 
dow. In  America,  where  central  heating  is  almost 
universal,  the  installation  is  always  fitted  with 
an  apparatus  called  a  "  thermostat,"  which 
automatically  shuts  off  the  heat  from  the  radiator 
in  each  room  when  the  desired  temperature  is 
reached.  This  economises  fuel  and  prevents 
discomfort,  and  should  be  regarded  as  an  essential 
part  of  a  central  heating  plant.  Unfortunately, 
no  central  heating  engineers  in  this  country  seem 
to  have  realised  the  importance  of  proper 
regulation  of  radiator  temperature,  and  the 
apparatus  is  not  on  the  English  market. 

The  best  ventilation  for  rooms  that  are  used 
all  day  is  a  supplementary  gas  or  coal  fire,  where 
the  tenant  can  afford  such  a  luxury.  Otherwise 
the  architect  must  arrange  the  best  possible 
system  of  ventilation  by  flues,  taking  advantage 


46  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

of  the  lightness  of  the  heated  air.  This  is  a 
technical  question  which  must  be  settled  to  suit 
local  conditions.  A  favoured  method  is  to  place 
the  radiator  under  a  window,  and  to  introduce 
cold  air  from  outside  to  flow  over  the  radiator, 
and,  when  warmed  to  rise  in  front  of  the  window, 
so  as  to  warm  first  what  is  normally  the  coldest 
part  of  the  room.  Proper  outlets  for  the  hot 
air  must  be  provided  near  the  ceiling. 
(b)  Central  heating  is  accused  of  being  cheerless,  and 
the  radiators  of  being  ugly.  But  radiators  need 
not  be  in  full  evidence  in  the  room,  and,  if  painted 
to  match  the  walls,  they  are  not  unsightly. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  they  do  nothing  to  add 
to  the  cheerful  aspect  of  a  room,  but  we  shall 
discuss  below  the  arguments  for  supplementary 
heating  by  radiation,  at  such  times  as  people 
have  opportunity  to  enjoy  it.  It  is  certain  that 
the  single-handed  housewife  has  little  time  during 
her  busy  day  to  sit  down  and  enjoy  a  cheerful 
fire,  and  the  rest  of  her  household,  who  are  old 
enough  to  appreciate  aesthetic  effects,  are  gener- 
ally at  school  or  at  work  during  the  day. 

CENTRAL  HEATING  PLANT. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  fact  that,  in  cottages 
built  12  to  the  acre,  a  common  central  heating  plant  is 
expensive  to  install ;  in  fact,  the  bulk  of  engineering 
opinion  considers  the  cost  prohibitive,  though  this  can 
hardly  yet  be  regarded  as  proved,  and  we  shall  describe 
later  a  recent  successful  installation  of  this  type.  It 
seems  probable,  however,  that  at  least  for  the  present 
any  big  development  of  central  heating  for  small  houses 
is  more  likely  to  be  on  the  lines  of  separate  installations 
for  each  house.  Here  again,  many  people  will  argue 
the  initial  cost  will  be  prohibitive.  We  do  not  think  that 
it  will  necessarily  work  out  so  in  practice  with  careful 
planning,  and,  if  some  chimneys  can  be  eliminated, 


WARMING    THE    HOUSE  47 

there  is  a  considerable  saving  in  brickwork  and  fireplaces, 
which  partly  off-sets  the  additional  cost  of  the  installa- 
tion. To  take  an  actual  instance,  the  Acton  Borough 
Council  has  experimentally  fitted  a  few  houses  with  a 
combined  central  heating  and  hot  water  supply.  Each 
house  has  its  own  boiler,  placed  either  in  the  scullery 
or  in  the  fuel  store  (the  former  is  the  better  arrangement), 
and  no  less  than  four  gas  fires  in  addition  to  four  radia- 
tors, which  must  be  regarded  as  somewhat  luxurious. 
The  cost  worked  out  at  £22  more  than  that  of  a  house 
with  a  range  in  the  kitchen  and  coal  grates  in  the  other 
rooms.  This  was  in  1920  when  prices  were  at  the  top. 
It  does  not  seem  to  us  to  be  an  excessively  high  additional 
capital  outlay  for  a  much  more  efficiently  warmed  house. 

Very  little  attention  had  until  recently  been  devoted 
to  small  central  heating  plants  in  this  country,  but  a  good 
deal  of  invention  and  research  has  now  been  turned 
towards  the  production  of  better  apparatus.  In  order 
to  save  space  in  small  modern  houses  which  are  built 
without  cellars,  new  types  of  boilers  have  been  designed 
which  are  suitable  for  placing  in  a  living  room.  The 
makers  claim  that,  owing  to  their  special  construction, 
they  can  perform  efficiently  the  three  services  of  cooking, 
heating  water,  and  warming  the  house,  from  one  coke 
or  anthracite  fire.1  Mica  panels  in  the  fire  doors  allow 
a  glow  from  the  fire  to  show  when  the  stove  is  closed  for 
water  heating  or  cooking.  When  heat  is  not  required 
for  these  purposes,  the  fire  doors  can  be  thrown  back 
revealing  a  cheerful  open  fire.  A  small  installation 
of  this  kind  will  warm  the  room  in  which  it  is  placed  and 
will  serve  three  or  four  medium  sized  radiators  in  other 
rooms  as  well.  It  is  undoubtedly  a  great  improvement 
on  the  ugly  vertical  boiler,  which  has  to  be  concealed 
in  a  cellar  or  out-house,  with  the  result  that  much 
valuable  heat  is  wasted.  Some  of  these  boilers  have  been 
installed  in  centrally-heated  houses  erected  by  Labour 

1See  also  Chapter  VI.,  page  62,  where  these  stoves  are  described, 
with  illustrations,  as  cooking  apparatus. 


48  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

Saving  Houses,  Ltd.,  at  Welwyn,  the  new  garden  city 
in  Hertfordshire,  and  we  are  told  that  they  are  working 
satisfactorily  on  a  low  fuel  consumption. 

There  seems  every  reason  to  hope  that  with  further 
experience  much  more  effective  and  cheaper  central 
heating  plants  will  be  designed  in  the  future.  Central 
heating  for  small  houses  is,  at  present,  in  the  trial  stage, 
and  it  is  too  soon  to  pronounce  a  final  opinion  as  yet. 
Meanwhile  actual  experiments  are  being  made  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  and  that  is  all  to  the  good. 

EXAMPLES  OF  CENTRALLY  HEATED  HOUSING  SCHEMES. 

We  have  already  explained  that  the  whole  idea  of 
central  heating  for  small  houses  is  a  new  one  in  this 
country.  The  speculative  builder,  who  built  95  per  cent, 
of  such  houses  before  the  war,  worked  on  stereotyped 
lines  and  did  not  attempt  to  develop  new  ideas.  Nor 
have  municipalities  shown  much  initiative  in  their 
post-war  building,  though  a  few  have  made  useful 
experiments. 

We  are  indebted  mainly  to  private  firms,  who  have 
built  houses  for  their  workers,  either  themselves  or 
through  public  utility  societies,  for  such  progress  as  has 
been  made.  Several  firms  have  rendered  valuable 
service  to  the  cause  of  smoke  abatement  and  fuel 
economy  by  their  courageous  experiments. 

The  Austin  Motor  Co.,  Ltd.,  led  the  way  by  building 
centrally-heated  houses  for  their  workpeople  during  the 
war ;  each  house  having  its  own  installation.  As  a 
new  departure  it  was  a  highly  creditable  scheme,  though 
we  think  the  method  of  having  radiators  upstairs,  and 
gas  fires  downstairs,  might  be  improved  upon. 

The  Sentinel  Steam  Wagon  Works,  Ltd.,  of  Shrews- 
bury, have  recently  built  a  large  number  of  houses  for 
their  workpeople.  The  houses  are  built  on  the  standard 
post-war  lines,  about  12  to  the  acre,  and  are  just  across 


WARMING    THE    HOUSE  49 

the  road  from  the  works.  Exhaust  steam  from  the 
works,  which  would  otherwise  be  largely  wasted,  is  made 
use  of  to  heat  water,  which  is  circulated  to  the  houses. 
These  are  warmed  by  radiators,  and  hot  water  is  also 
laid  on  to  the  bath  and  sink.  The  living  room,  which 
has  no  radiator,  is  fitted  with  a  small  convertible  coal 
grate  with  oven,  and  there  is  a  gas  cooker  in  the  kitchen- 
scullery.  The  tenants  pay  2s.  per  week  throughout  the 
year  for  the  combined  heating  and  domestic  hot  water 
supply.  The  houses  were  visited  last  year  by  the 
authors,  and  the  tenants,  who  had  then  recently  moved 
in,  expressed  themselves  as  highly  satifised  with  the 
heating  arrangements.  There  is  no  doubt  that  they  get 
very  good  value  for  their  money.  A  report  from  the 
firm,  a  year  after  our  visit  and  when  98  houses  were 
tenanted,  states  that  "  the  installation  is  working  very 
satisfactorily  and  giving  satisfaction  to  the  tenants. 
There  is  a  constant  supply  of  hot  water,  day  and  night, 
and  the  rooms  are  kept  at  a  good  temperature  at  all 
times." 

CONDITIONS  FOR  SUCCESSFUL  CENTRAL  HEATING. 

As  it  seems  not  unlikely,  judging  by  recent  improve- 
ments in  plant  and  the  actual  experiments  made  in  build- 
ing centrally-heated  houses,  that  developments  in  this 
direction  may  be  expected,  it  will  not  be  out  of  place, 
in  conclusion,  to  discuss  what  are  the  conditions  which 
would  make  for  success  with  central  heating. 

The  main  consideration  is  what  temperature  should 
be  aimed  at  in  central  heating  and  what  supplementary 
heating,  if  any,  should  be  provided.  The  subject  of 
ventilation  has  already  been  discussed. 

The  American  system  of  keeping  rooms  at  a  tem- 
perature of  70°  F.  is  obviously  not  desirable  here,  and  it 
tends  to  accentuate  any  disadvantages  there  are 
connected  with  central  heating.  A  small  radiator 
system  capable  of  maintaining  a  room  temperature  of 


50  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

58°  or  60°  F.,  supplemented  when  necessary  with 
radiant  heat,  is  probably  the  most  satisfactory  method 
of  house-warming.  During  the  daytime,  when  the 
housewife  is  engaged  on  her  active  duties,  the  central 
heating  alone  would  be  ample  for  comfort.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  in  the  average  small  house  with  its  one 
coal  fire,  a  great  part  of  a  woman's  work,  sweeping, 
dusting,  bed-making  and  so  on,  is  performed  in  cold 
rooms,  interrupted  by  occasional  spells  in  a  hot  kitchen, 
which  serve  to  make  her  more  sensitive  to  cold.  The 
other  adults  and  the  older  children  are  away  from  home 
during  the  day,  leaving  only  the  children  under  school 
age  at  home.  For  these  a  room  temperature  of  between 
58°  F.  and  60*  F.  would  be  sufficient.  The  "  toddlers," 
with  their  ceaseless  activities,  would  keep  themselves 
Tvarni.  Infants,  who  spend  most  of  their  time  asleep 
in  their  cradles,  do  not  need  rooms  with  a  high  tem- 
perature ;  modern  medical  opinion  is  emphatic  that  the 
practice  of  keeping  infants  in  hot  rooms  is  a  fruitful 
source  of  ill-health  and  conduces  to  a  high  mortality 
rate.  In  the  case  of  a  household  containing  very  old 
people,  an  exception  to  this  rule  might  have  to  be  made, 
as  radiator-heating  of  moderate  temperature  would 
probably  not  suffice  for  them. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  record  that,  after  the  foregoing 
was  written,  one  of  the  writers,when  visiting  the  centrally 
heated  houses  at  Acton,  was  told  by  a  tenant,  who  never 
used  any  supplementary  heating,  that  her  old  grand- 
father liked  to  visit  her  better  than  any  of  his  other 
relatives,  because  her's  was  the  only  house  where  he 
felt  really  warm  !  The  other  relatives,  of  course,  had 
nothing  but  coal  fires  in  their  houses. 

It  is  in  the  evening,  when  the  housewife  has  leisure 
to  sit  down,  and  the  other  members  of  the  family  return 
from  work  or  school,  that  auxiliary  heating  by  coal  or 
gas  fire  for  the  sake  of  extra  warmth  and  cheerfulness 
may  be  needed.  The  second  reason  will  probably  be 


WARMING   THE  'HOUSE  51 

the  dominant  one,  except  in  very  cold  weather,  because 
small  houses  with  central  heating  become  fairly  hot 
towards  evening,  and  the  tenants  of  such  houses,  whom 
we  have  interviewed,  say  they  seldom  need  to  light 
fires  ;  and,  if  they  do  so  when  entertaining  friends,  they 
generally  let  them  go  out  before  the  evening  is  over. 

To  comply  strictly  with  smoke  abatement  require- 
ments, the  supplementary  heating  should  be  by  means  of 
gas  fires.  Then  indeed  complete  smokelessness  would 
be  secured.  But  if  cheerfulness  and  sociability  are  the 
main  objects,  coal  fires  in  the  evening  will  probably  be 
preferred.  It  is  pretty  certain,  though,  that,  when  no 
longer  actually  required  for  warming  purposes,  the  fact 
that  they  cause  labour  will  tend  to  limit  their  use  ;  and 
the  housewife  will  regard  them  as  luxuries,  not  be- 
cause she  is  convinced  that  burning  raw  coal  is  an 
extravagance,  but  because  coal  fires  involve  the  same 
sort  of  extra  trouble  for  her  as  making  delicacies  to  eat ; 
and,  like  those  delicacies,  the  supplementary  fires  will 
be  conceded  on  occasion,  but  not  as  a  regular  thing. 

SUMMARY. 

(1)  Central  heating  for  small  houses  still  in  the  ex- 

perimental   stage,    but    developments    may    be 
expected. 

(2)  Gas  at  present  too  expensive  for  continuous  use, 

therefore  all-gas  house  not  yet  practicable. 

(3)  Gas  for  intermittent  use  cheaper  and  quicker  than 

coal  fire. 

(4)  Each  house  should  have  but  one  coal  grate  of  small 

fuel  capacity  and  fitted  with  draught  regulators  ; 
gas  fires  in  the  other  rooms  of  the  house. 


CHAPTER  V. 

HOT   WATER    SUPPLY. 

AN  adequate  supply  of  hot  water  to  the  bath  and  sink 
is  essential  in  every  house,  however  small.  Indeed  it 
is  in  the  workman's  cottage  that  the  need  for  hot  water 
is  greatest.  The  children  from  such  homes  have  no 
clean  nurseries  to  play  in,  but  only  the  street.  The  wage 
earners  come  home  dirty  from  works  or  mines,  and  all 
the  family  washing  is  done  at  home. 

It  is  regrettable  that  many  cottages,  even  among  those 
built  in  recent  years,  have  no  such  hot  water  supply, 
and  the  tenants  have  to  depend  entirely  on  boiling 
kettles  on  the  fire.  This  is  most  unsatisfactory.  It 
is  true  that,  even  under  such  conditions, some  exceptional 
women  succeed  in  keeping  their  homes  and  families 
clean,  but  only  at  the  expense  of  much  patience,  labour 
and  fatigue. 

For  the  most  part  the  houses  built  under  the  govern- 
ment schemes  have  a  proper  hot  water  circulation, 
though  unfortunately  in  many  cases  the  old-fashioned 
kitchen  range  has  been  installed  to  supply  it.  But 
there  are  cases  where  a  gas  geyser  in  the  bath  room  or  a 
gas  fired  copper  in  the  scullery  is  the  sole  means  for 
obtaining  hot  water.  This  is  a  thoroughly  bad  arrange- 
ment and  should  have  been  condemned  by  the  Ministry 
of  Health  as  unfair  to  the  tenant ;  not  only  because  the 
hot  water  is  supplied  at  one  point  only  instead  of  to  both 
bath  and  sink,  but,  still  more,  because  gas  for  water 
heating  purposes  is  too  expensive  at  present  for  the  needs 
of  an  ordinary  family, 

52 


HOT    WATER    SUPPLY 


53 


BEST  METHODS  OF  HEATING  WATER. 

We  have  just  stated  that  gas  may  be  dismissed  as  a 
fuel  for  water  heating  purposes  on  account  of  cost,  though 
it  may  be  useful  for  supplementing  other  methods,  or 
when  small  quantities  are  required,  or  for  occasional  use. 

Electricity  is  entirely  out  of  the  question  for  the  same 
reason,  so  that  we  are  left  to  decide  between  coal  and 
coke. 

Coal  should,  of  course,  only  be  used  where  a  coal  fire 
is  installed  for  other  reasons.  In  that  case  it  may  be 
advantageous  to  fit  a  back  boiler  to  the  living  room 
grate.  The  heat  thrown  out  into  the  room  is  somewhat 
reduced  by  the  presence  of  the  boiler,  but,  with  good 
design,  an  open  fire  is  capable  of  warming  a  room  of 
medium  size  and  giving  also  a  fair  supply  of  hot  water. 

But  the  best  way  of  heating  water  is  by  an  independent 
coke  boiler,  which  may  be  placed  in  the  living  room,  or 
better  in  the  scullery.  Several  good  designs  of  such 
boilers  have  recently  been  placed  on  the  market,  and 
we  illustrate  one  of  them  below. 


Fig  2. 


54  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

It  will  be  seen  that  it  is  not  unsightly  like  the  old 
vertical  boiler,  but  quite  fit  for  the  kitchen  or  scullery. 
It  is  not  only  a  boiler,  but  has  a  hot  plate  for  cooking 
on  the  top ;  and,  when  the  doors  are  open,  as  in  the 
illustration,  it  provides  a  pleasant  open  coke  fire,  which 
the  tenant  can  poke  to  his  heart's  content.  It  also 
serves  as  an  excellent  refuse  destructor,  being  capable 
of  consuming  all  refuse,  including  even  old  tins.  Further 
it  makes  the  drying  and  airing  of  clothes  much  easier. 
This  is  always  a  problem,  especially  in  the  north  of 
England,  where,  owing  to  the  dampness  of  the  climate, 
drying  must  be  done  indoors  during  at  least  eight  months 
of  the  year. 

As  regards  its  main  duty,  the  heating  of  water,  Dr. 
Margaret  Fishenden,  as  the  result  of  a  series  of  tests, 
found  that  this  boiler  will  heat,  in  a  given  time,  from 
two  to  two  and  a  half  times  as  much  water  as  the  usual 
back  boiler,  and  that  the  efficiency  as  regards  fuel 
consumption  is  more  than  double  that  of  the  back  boiler. 
That  is  to  say,  that  a  given  quantity  of  fuel  will  heat 
more  than  twice  the  amount  of  water  to  the  required 
temperature. 

It  is  clear  then  that  the  coke  boiler  has  great  advan- 
tages. In  the  summer  when  the  coal  fire  is  used  only  to 
get  hot  water,  the  advantages  are  overwhelming.  The 
coke  boiler  will  do  the  work  with  half  the  fuel,  and  will, 
at  the  same  time,  burn  refuse  and  will  dry  clothes  better. 
Also,  if  placed  in  the  scullery,  it  will  cause  less  over- 
heating in  the  living  room. 

In  winter  when  a  coal  fire  is  in  use  in  the  living  room 
the  advantages  of  the  coke  boiler  are  less.  But,  if 
both  are  installed,  the  individual  housewife  will  be 
able  to  choose  which  method  of  heating  water  she  will 
employ,  and  she  will  probably  find  the  coke  boiler  more 
convenient. 

In  our  opinion  a  coke  boiler  should  be  installed  in 
every  house.  If  the  design  can  be  further  improved, 


HOT    WATER    SUPPLY  55 

especially  in  appearance,  and  this  will  almost  certainly 
be  the  case,  these  combined  coke  boilers  and  open  fires 
might  well  be  installed  in  the  living  room  in  place  of  the 
open  coal  fire.  They  are  not  only  more  efficient  for 
heating  the  water,  but  they  will  perform  adequately 
other  services  in  addition  ;  the  newest  types  are  made 
with  an  oven.  Even  if,  in  their  present  form,  they  are 
not  so  attractive  and  cheerful  as  the  coal  fire,  yet  we 
believe  many  householders  would  be  glad  to  use  them 
on  account  of  the  increased  comfort  and  economy  which 
they  offer,  and  because  of  their  smokelessness.  We 
regard  the  improvement  of  this  type  of  apparatus  as  one 
of  the  most  important  and  practical  lines  of  develop- 
ment. 

In  using  coke,  precautions  should  be  taken  to  keep  it 
dry.  It  is  commonly,  and  mistakenly,  thought  that  it 
may  lie  in  the  open,  exposed  to  damp  and  rain,  without 
harm.  Dr.  Fishenden  found  that  the  radiant  efficiency 
of  coke  was  diminished  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of 
moisture  it  contained.  This  is  an  important  point 
where  a  coke  boiler  is  used  as  an  open  fire. 

Where  houses  are  fitted  with  central  heating,  the  hot 
water  will  normally  be  supplied  from  the  same  boiler. 
It  is  generally  supplied  on  a  separate  circulation,  so 
that  in  summer  time  the  radiators  can  be  cut  off,  and  the 
fire  used  for  heating  the  hot  water  supply  only.  In 
that  case  it  is  the  equivalent  of  the  independent  coke 
fired  boiler  which  we  have  described  above. 

COMMUNAL  HOT  WATER  SYSTEMS. 

Some  interesting  experiments  in  the  direction  of  a 
common  supply  of  hot  water  to  colonies  of  houses  are 
being  made  in  connexion  with  the  new  housing  schemes. 
Such  a  supply  is  commonly  laid  on  in  blocks  of  flats  and 
in  hotels,  and  is  undoubtedly  economical  in  such  cases. 
Two  blocks  of  working-class  tenements  in  Liverpool  have 
had  a  similar  supply  for  many  years,  water  at  a  temper- 


56  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

ature  of  about  140°  F.  being  laid  on  to  the  bath  and  sink 
in  each  house.  This  installation  has  been  successful  and 
economical. 

The  problem  has  become  much  more  difficult  now  that 
separate  cottages  are  being  built  about  12  to  the  acre. 
There  are  no  serious  engineering  difficulties,  but  the 
pipes  from  house  to  house  have  to  be  laid  in  properly 
built  conduits,  and  must  be  very  well  coated  to  avoid 
loss  of  heat.  All  this  is  expensive,  and  the  question  is 
whether  such  plants  can  be  made  to  pay. 

The  Manchester  Corporation  has  a  scheme  for  a 
communal  supply  of  hot  water  to  500  houses  ;  the  heat 
is  to  be  obtained  cheaply  from  an  existing  refuse  des- 
tructor, where  steam  is  largely  a  by-product.  The 
intention  is  to  charge  the  tenants  is.  6d.  a  week.  As 
they  will  certainly  save  i  cwt.  of  coal  a  week  on  an  aver- 
age, they  will  be  glad  to  pay  this  amount  for  a  constant 
supply  of  hot  water,  and  it  is  estimated  that  the  charge 
will  suffice  to  pay  working  expenses,  also  interest  and 
sinking  fund.  There  will  be  a  considerable  saving  of 
labour  for  the  housewife,  and  the  hot  water  production 
will  be  smokeless.  As  cooking  will  be  done  by  gas,  there 
will  be  no  smoke  whatever  from  this  estate  in  summer. 

The  experiment  is  an  important  one,  and  its  results 
•will  be  watched  with  interest. 

SUMMARY. 

1.  Gas  and  electricity  are  too  expensive  for  general  use. 

2.  A  back  boiler  behind  the  living  room  coal  fire  is 

fairly  satisfactory,  but  not  economical. 

3.  A  separate  coke  boiler  is  far  more  efficient  and  is 

smokeless. 

4.  Experiments  should  be  made  in  installing  such  coke 

boilers,  convertible  into  open  fires,  in  the  living 
rooms,  to  replace  the  coal  fires. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

COOKING. 

THEORETICAL  considerations  as  to  the  application  of 
heat  for  cooking  purposes  need  not  detain  us  long. 
This  is  not  a  cookery  book,  so  we  will  not  enter  into  the 
difference  between  baking,  frying,  and  boiling,  or,  as 
Mr.  Barker  classifies  them — oven  cookery,  open  air 
cookery  and  moist  heat  cookery.  There  is,  however, 
one  more  distinction  in  cooking  operations  which  has  a 
bearing  on  fuel  economy,  to  which  we  would  direct 
attention. 

Cooking  operations  are  divided  into  two  classes  : — 

(a)  Those    which    require    a   high    temperature,     e.g., 

frying,  roasting. 

(b)  Those  in  which,  once  the  food  has  been  raised  to  a 

certain  temperature,  cooking  will  go  on  without 
the  application  of  more  heat,  provided  heat  is  not 
allowed  to  escape  from  the  hot  food  or  from  the 
vessel  containing  it. 

Emphatically,  it  is  not  economical  to  conduct  both 
kinds  of  operation  by  means  of  the  same  apparatus. 
Cookery  books  frequently  contain  instructions  such  as 
the  following  :—  "  Bring  to  boiling  point,  and  then  draw 
the  pan  away  from  the  fire  and  simmer  gently."  And 
this  process  is  sometimes  to  be  kept  up  for  hours  at 
a  stretch,  that  is  to  say,  the  housewife  is  to  place  the 
food  to  be  cooked  so  that  it  may  avoid  most  of  the  heat 
of  the  fire.  This  amounts,  practically,  to  a  recommenda- 
tion to  waste  fuel.  In  this  case,  provided  the  heat  could 
be  prevented  from  escaping,  the  food  would  go  on  cook- 
ing without  the  expenditure  of  further  heat.  As, 
however,  the  ordinary  saucepan  is  not  constructed  on 
the  principle  of  a  thermos  flask,  heat  escapes,  and  has 

57 


58  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

to  be  made  good  by  keeping  the  pan  near  the  fire  or  on 
a  gas  burner  turned  low. 

The  hay  box,  which  is  an  adaptation  of  the  thermos 
flask  principle,  is  very  useful  as  a  fuel  sparer,  and  should 
be  found  in  all  houses  where  economy  in  an  object — 
though  as  a  matter  of  fact,  fuel  economy  should  be  an 
object  in  every  house,  not  only  in  those  where  means 
are  limited.  The  principle  of  hay  box  cookery  is  that 
the  hot  vessel,  already  heated  on  the  gas  or  fire,  is 
placed,  surrounded  by  hay,  in  a  non-conducting  box, 
from  which  the  heat  will  only  escape  very  slowly,  thus 
permitting  the  food  to  go  on  cooking, 

There  are  some  really  elaborate  fireless  cookers  on  the 
market  now,  some  of  which  have  an  electric  bulb  to 
make  good  any  loss  of  heat ;  but  a  hay  box  that  is 
satisfactory  for  ordinary  purposes  can  be  made  at  home 
by  lining  an  ordinary  packing  case  with  stout  brown 
paper.  A  bed  is  made  to  contain  the  pans  (these 
should  preferably  be  without  projecting  handles), 
a  cushion  filled  with  hay  is  placed  on  the  top,  and  the 
lid  is  then  securely  fastened. 

Slow  cooking,  at  a  low  temperature,  forms  a  large  part 
of  a  family's  cooking  operations,  except  where  a  thriftless 
housewife  rules,  who  contents  herself  with  frying  or 
boiling  in  haste.  It  is  sometimes  urged  against  the  gas 
cooker  that  it  is  not  so  good  for  "  slow  cooking  "  as  a 
coal  range.  Doubtless  there  is  something  in  this  argu- 
ment, as  it  is  probably  easier  to  evade  heat  with  a  kitchen 
range  than  with  a  gas  cooker.  A  solution  of  the 
difficulty  lies  in  supplementing  the  gas  stove  with  a  hay 
box — not  in  retaining  the  coal  range  because,  as  its 
advocates  say,  it  "  bakes  a  rice  pudding  so  nicely." 

GAS  COOKING. 

Owing  to  the  increasing  popularity  of  the  gas  stove 
our  cooking  methods  are  less  open  to  the  charge  of  crude- 
ness  than  are  our  ways  of  warming  rooms  and  heating 


COOKING  59 

water.  There  is  reason  to  hope  that  we  may  level  up 
these  in  time,  because  it  is  not  so  very  long  ago  that 
women,  who  prided  themselves  on  their  housewifery, 
looked  with  suspicion  and  contempt  upon  the  gas-cooker 
and  were  heard  to  proclaim  that  they  would  never  demean 
themselves  by  using  such  a  thing.  To-day,  thanks  to 
much  invention,  research,  and  enterprise  on  the  part  of 
the  gas  undertakings — commercial  and  municipal — gas 
cooking  is  extremely  popular.  In  London,  for  instance, 
nearly  every  house  will  be  found  to  have  its  cooker  or 
griller,  and  even  the  poorest  people  will  have  a  gas-ring. 
The  practice,  followed  by  some  municipal  corporations, 
of  lending  and  fixing  gas  cookers  free  of  charge  has  done 
good  service  to  the  cause  of  smoke  abatement. 

We  need  not  enlarge  upon  the  advantages  of  gas  for 
cooking.  It  is  there  when  wanted  without  the  trouble 
of  lighting  fires  and  carrying  coals ;  it  is  clean  and  smoke- 
less ;  when  cooking  is  over,  there  are  no  ashes  to  clear 
up  and  the  periodical  flue  cleaning,  so  trying  to  the 
temper,  is  abolished.  Most  people  appreciate  these 
points,  and  expect  to  have  gas-cookers  in  their  houses, 
if  they  live  in  the  area  of  a  gas  supply.  This  being  so, 
there  is  no  justification  for  the  common  practice  of 
putting  kitchen  ranges  into  new  houses.  It  is  usual  to  put 
a  gas-cooker  in  the  scullery  and  to  fix  an  anachronism 
in  the  shape  of  a  range  in  the  kitchen.  For  the  most 
part,  cooking  will  be  done  by  gas  and  the  kitchen  range 
will  be  merely  used  to  warm  the  room  and  supply  hot 
water  ;  perhaps  also  for  warming  plates  and  keeping 
food  hot ;  and  it  may  be,  for  cooking  that  rice  pudding 
already  referred  to.  As  all  these  operations  can  be 
performed  without  a  kitchen  range,  it  is  regrettable 
that  private  builders,  and  some  local  authorities,  are 
continuing  the  use  of  a  wasteful,  smoke  producing,  and, 
discredited  apparatus. 

GAS  COOKING  UNDER  THE  BEST  CONDITIONS. 
Manufacturers   have   greatly  improved  gas  cooking 


62  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

it  causes  more  labour  than  gas.  If  cooking  alone  were 
required,  there  would  be  no  point  in  using  either  of  these 
where  a  supply  of  gas  is  available  ;  but  if  it  is  desired 
to  perform  more  than  one  operation  by  means  of  a  single 
installation,  then  the  question  of  using  either  of  these 
fuels  has  to  be  considered.  Coke  fired  cooking  stoves 
have  been  in  use  for  some  time,  and  recently,  new  types, 
designed  not  only  to  cook,  but  to  heat  the  domestic 
hot  water  supply,  and  to  warm  the  rooms  by  means  of 
radiators,  have  been  placed  on  the  market.  We  re- 
ferred to  these  boilers  in  Chapter  IV.,  in  dealing  with 
central  heating.  For  use  as  cooking  apparatus,  they 
have  an  oven  and  a  hot  plate  with  rings  on  which 
boiling  may  be  done.  We  have  made  careful  enquiries 
about  their  cooking  efficiency,  and  those  who  have  used 
them  state  that  the  oven  heating  is  entirely  satisfactory 
and  that  they  can  do  all  kinds  of  cooking  with  the  stoves. 
The  accompanying  illustration  shows  two  types  of 
these  boilers.  In  one  the  oven  is  beside  the  fire — in 
the  other,  above  it.  Both  can  be  used  with  an  open 
fire  when  cooking  operations  are  not  in  progress,  and  they 
are  therefore  suitable  for  placing  in  a  kitchen,  living- 
room  or  scullery. 


Fig.  3- 


Fig.  4. 


COOKING  63 

Dr.  Fishenden  made  tests  of  these  boilers  and  she 
found  that  the  ovens  heated  well  and  that  there  was  no 
diminution  in  the  water  heating  efficiency  when  the 
oven  was  in  circuit.  In  her  opinion,  when  coke  boilers 
are  installed,  it  is  desirable,  on  grounds  of  fuel  economy, 
that  they  should  be  furnished  with  an  oven  and  a  hot 
plate. 

COAL  COOKING  WITH  A  MINIMUM  OF  SMOKE. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  gas  cooking  is  the  best,  since  it 
is  labour  saving  as  well  as  smokeless,  and  that  coke  and 
anthracite  come  next  in  merit,  having  the  advantage 
of  smokelessness,  but  involving  more  labour  than  gas. 
From  the  smoke  abatement  point  of  view,  cooking  should 
be  done  with  one  of  these  fuels.  It  will,  however,  be 
urged  that  the  Departmental  Committee  has  pronounced 
that  one  coal  grate  in  a  house  is  permissible,  and  should 
not  this,  when  a  fire  is  burning,  be  used  for  some  cooking 
operations  at  least  t  On  grounds  of  economy  this 
argument  is  sound,  and  the  living  room  grate  should  be 
adaptable  for  cooking  when  in  use  for  room  warming 
purposes. 

The  modern,  low,  bar-less  types  of  sitting-room  grates 
can  be  fitted  with  ovens  as  well  as  back  boilers,  and  there 
are  now  on  the  market  a  great  many  varieties  of  these 
grates,  which  combine  the  functions  of  an  open  fire  and 
a  cooking  range.     They  are  probably  familiar  to  our 
readers  under   the  different   descriptive,   if  somewhat 
fanciful,  names  given  to  them  in  advertisements.     They 
can  be  divided  into  two  classes  : — 
(a)  A  shallow  fireplace  with  an  oven  beside  it,  as  illus- 
trated in  Fig.  5.   This  is  frankly  and  undisguised!}^ 
a  cooking  apparatus.     The  low  fire  is,  however, 
pleasanter  in  a  living  room  than  a  kitchen  range, 
and,  although  one  cannot  conceal  the  oven,  this 
kind  of  grate  has  the  advantage  of  being  un- 
complicated and  easy  to  manage.     The  fireplace 
is  shallow  compared  with  an  open  range  and  does 
not  tempt  the  housewife  to  waste  fuel. 


THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 


QV/E.N 


Fig.  5. 


(b)  The  other  type  when  used  as  an  open  fire,  has  the 
appearance  of  an  ordinary  sitting-room  grate, 
(Fig.  6).  The  oven  is  above  the  fire,  and  its  door 
simulates  a  canopy.  When  cooking  operations  are 
in  progress,  metal  plates  can  be  dropped  over  the 
open  fire.  The  grate  is  then  converted  into  a 
small  closed  range  {Fig  7).  When  properly  fixed 
and  intelligently  managed,  these  grates  are  efficient 
for  cooking  and  room- warming  and  fairly  so 
for  water  heating,  though  they  cannot  compare 
in  this  respect  with  the  independent  boiler. 
Their  fuel  capacity  is  small,  which  makes  it 
actually  difficult  to  waste  coal.  They  cost  no 
more  in  capital  outlay  than  the  old-fashioned 
ranges,  which  devour  large  quantities  of  fuel  and 
produce  much  smoke. 


COOKING 


Fig.  6. 
As  open  fire. 


Fig.  7. 
As  closed  range. 


Housewives  who  prefer  gas  to  coal  cooking  (and  they 
are  fairly  numerous  now-a-days)  would  probably  not 
attempt  to  heat  up  the  ovens  in  these  grates,  but  would 
only  use  them  as  a  rule  for  keeping  food  hot,  warming 
plates  and  so  on.  Still,  even  the  greatest  enthusiast 
for  gas  should  make  use  of  a  trivet  attached  to  her  coal 
grate,  to  boil  saucepans,  if  she  has  a  fire  burning. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  this  convertible  type  of  grate 
is  a  little  complicated  and  needs  intelligent  management 
and  the  choice  of  a  suitable  coal.  But  if  we  are  going 
to  have  improved  methods  of  heating  and  cooking,  we 
must  look  for  intelligence  and  skill  in  the  use  of  apparatus. 
We  cannot  expect  to  achieve  fuel  economy  and  smoke- 
lessness  without  taking  some  trouble  about  the  business. 

The  important  point  about  these  grates  is  the  limited 
size  of  the  fire,  which  can  be  started  with  a  much  smaller 
amount  of  coal  than  a  kitchen  range  and  can  be  main- 
tained on  a  low  fuel  consumption.  Hence  less  coal 
burnt  and  less  smoke  produced. 


66  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

SUMMARY. 

(1)  No  coal  range  of  the  Yorkshire  or  Lancashire  type 

should  ever  be  fixed  in  a  new  house. 

(2)  Wherever  there  is  a  gas  supply,  a  gas  cooker  should 

be  installed  in  every  house. 

(3)  A  range,  burning  coke  or  anthracite,  is  the  next 

best. 

(4)  Where  there  is  a  solid  fuel  fire  in  the  living  room, 

it  should  be  adapted  for  cooking. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

LOW  TEMPERATURE  FUEL  (COALITE). 

THERE  is  only  one  way  in  which  a  complete  solution  of 
the  domestic  smoke  problem  might  be  attained  in 
reasonable  time  :  by  the  discovery  of  a  smokeless  solid 
fuel  to  replace  coal.  Even  if  our  recommendations  were 
generally  acted  on,  there  would  still  be  some  smoke  in 
winter  from  that  one  coal  fire ;  and  the  great  bulk  of 
the  smoke,  that  from  existing  houses,  though  it  would 
be  greatly  decreased  by  the  installation  of  gas  cookers 
and  fires,  would  only  disappear  as  the  houses  were 
pulled  down.  As  the  life  of  the  ordinary  house  is  about 
100  years,  that  is  a  long  time  to  look  ahead  for  any 
reform.  But  a  smokeless  solid  fuel  that  would  burn 
cheerfully  and  well,  and  would  be  no  more  expensive 
than  coal,  would  alter  the  whole  position.  If  such  a 
fuel  were  available  in  adequate  quantity  and  at  a 
reasonable  price,  it  would  clearly  be  possible,  it  would  in 
fact  be  the  obvious  duty  of  Parliament  in  the  general 
interest,  to  prohibit  the  burning  of  raw  coal  in  houses. 

Such  a  fuel  has  actually  been  on  the  market  for 
some  years,  though  only  intermittently  and  in  small 
quantities.  It  is  known  to  the  public  best  under  the 
proprietary  name  of  "  Coalite."  The  Coalite  Company 
has  successfully  placed  on  the  market  several  thousand 
tons  of  this  smokeless  fuel,  and  sold  it  at  prices  con- 
siderably in  excess  of  best  domestic  coal. 

The  principle  on  which  such  fuels  are  made  is  now  well 
known.  Coal,  suitable  for  coking,  consists  mainly  of 
carbon,  mixed  with  certain  tarry  and  oily  constituents. 
To  make  ordinary  coke,  the  coal  is  heated  to  a  high 
temperature  in  the  absence  of  air,  and  all  the  tar  is 

67 


66  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

SUMMARY. 

(1)  No  coal  range  of  the  Yorkshire  or  Lancashire  type 

should  ever  be  fixed  in  a  new  house. 

(2)  Wherever  there  is  a  gas  supply,  a  gas  cooker  should 

be  installed  in  every  house. 

(3)  A  range,  burning  coke  or  anthracite,  is  the  next 

best. 

(4)  Where  there  is  a  solid  fuel  fire  in  the  living  room, 

it  should  be  adapted  for  cooking. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

LOW  TEMPERATURE  FUEL  (COALITE). 

THERE  is  only  one  way  in  which  a  complete  solution  of 
the  domestic  smoke  problem  might  be  attained  in 
reasonable  time  :  by  the  discovery  of  a  smokeless  solid 
fuel  to  replace  coal.  Even  if  our  recommendations  were 
generally  acted  on,  there  would  still  be  some  smoke  in 
winter  from  that  one  coal  fire ;  and  the  great  bulk  of 
the  smoke,  that  from  existing  houses,  though  it  would 
be  greatly  decreased  by  the  installation  of  gas  cookers 
and  fires,  would  only  disappear  as  the  houses  were 
pulled  down.  As  the  life  of  the  ordinary  house  is  about 
100  years,  that  is  a  long  time  to  look  ahead  for  any 
reform.  But  a  smokeless  solid  fuel  that  would  burn 
cheerfully  and  well,  and  would  be  no  more  expensive 
than  coal,  would  alter  the  whole  position.  If  such  a 
fuel  were  available  in  adequate  quantity  and  at  a 
reasonable  price,  it  would  clearly  be  possible,  it  would  in 
fact  be  the  obvious  duty  of  Parliament  in  the  general 
interest,  to  prohibit  the  burning  of  raw  coal  in  houses. 

Such  a  fuel  has  actually  been  on  the  market  for 
some  years,  though  only  intermittently  and  in  small 
quantities.  It  is  known  to  the  public  best  under  the 
proprietary  name  of  "  Coalite.0  The  Coalite  Company 
has  successfully  placed  on  the  market  several  thousand 
tons  of  this  smokeless  fuel,  and  sold  it  at  prices  con- 
siderably in  excess  of  best  domestic  coal. 

The  principle  on  which  such  fuels  are  made  is  now  well 
known.  Coal,  suitable  for  coking,  consists  mainly  of 
carbon,  mixed  with  certain  tarry  and  oily  constituents. 
To  make  ordinary  coke,  the  coal  is  heated  to  a  high 
temperature  in  the  absence  of  air,  and  all  the  tar  is 

67 


68  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

driven  off.  It  is  the  tar  and  oil  which  enable  the  coal 
to  be  easily  lit,  and  also  cause  smoke  ;  so  that  ordinary 
coke,  from  which  they  are  completely  absent,  is  smoke- 
less and  hard  to  light.  To  make  a  good  domestic  fuel 
the  coal  is  heated  to  a  much  lower  temperature  (low 
temperature  carbonisation),  with  the  result  that  only  a 
portion  of  the  tar  and  oil  is  driven  off.  In  this  way  a 
fuel  is  produced,  known  in  scientific  circles  as  low  tem- 
perature coke  or  semi-coked  coal,  which  is  both  easily 
lit  and  smokeless,  and  is,  in  fact,  an  almost  ideally 
perfect  domestic  fuel. 

As  regards  the  suitability  of  a  well-made  semi-coked 
coal  for  domestic  use,  there  is  no  doubt  whatever.  Such 
fuels  have  been  on  the  market  on  a  small  scale  for  about 
15  years,  and  hundreds  of  people  have  tested  them 
exhaustively.  Dr.  Fishenden  has  recently  made  a 
series  of  tests  *  on  semi-coked  coals  manufactured  by  the 
Fuel  Research  Department,  and  by  various  firms.  She 
reports  that  the  coke  lights  easily,  and  produces  a 
smokeless,  bright  and  very  hot  fire,  which  is  easily  kept 
going.  Curiously  enough  it  is  more  efficient  than  coal 
when  burnt  in  the  open  grate  ;  where  coal  gives  a  radiant 
efficiency  of  20  to  25  per  cent.,  semi-coked  coal  gives 
30  to  33  per  cent.  For  water  heating  and  oven  heating 
the  efficiency  is  about  the  same  as  coal. 

The  volume  of  semi-coked  coal  is  nearly  double  that 
of  an  equal  weight  of  coal,  and  this  involves  some  extra 
labour  in  carrying  and  in  feeding  the  fire. 

Efforts  have  been  made  for  many  years  and  in  various 
countries  to  put  a  good  semi-coked  coal  on  the  market. 
There  are  many  technical  difficulties  to  be  overcome  which 
we  need  not  refer  to  here,  except  to  say  that,  although 
steady  progress  has  been  made,  they  can  hardly  be 
regarded  yet  as  finally  overcome.  Much  experimenting 

1  The  Efficiency  of  Low  Temperature  Coke.  Fuel  Research  Board 
Technical  Paper  No.  3. 


LOW    TEMPERATURE    FUEL  69 

is  still  going  on,  and  continual  improvements  are  being 
made. 

But  the  technical  difficulties  are  likely  to  prove  less 
important  than  the  economic  difficulties.  It  is  still 
quite  uncertain  at  what  price,  in  relation  to  household 
coal  and  gas  coke,  a  good  semi-coked  coal  can  be 
manufactured.  This  depends  on  many  unknown  factors  : 
on  the  cost  of  manufacture,  on  the  overcoming  of  existing 
technical  difficulties,  on  the  market  for  the  gas,  which  is 
difficult  to  sell  at  its  full  value  owing  to  its  abnormal 
richness,  and  on  the  price  obtainable  for  the  by-products, 
which  differ  from  those  now  on  the  market  and  are 
therefore  of  uncertain  value.  It  is  equally  uncertain 
at  what  price  a  general  demand  would  arise  for  semi- 
coked  coal.  Although  its  calorific  value  is  about 
the  same  as  coal,  in  view  of  its  superior  radiant  efficiency 
it  is  probably  worth  20  per  cent,  more  than  coal  for  use 
in  open  fires. 

An  elaborate  and  valuable  series  of  experiments  on 
low  temperature  carbonisation  have  been  carried  on 
for  the  last  two  years  by  the  Fuel  Research  Board,  and 
plants  are  actually  at  work  in  Glasgow  and  Barnsley. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  problem  is  near  solution,  but 
experts  differ  profoundly,  and  it  is  impossible  to  make 
any  reliable  estimate  as  to  whether  and  when  a  semi- 
coked  coal  is  likely  to  be  placed  on  the  market  in  large 
quantities  and  at  an  acceptable  price. 

The  possibility  and  the  uncertainty  of  this  do  not  in 
any  way  affect  our  recommendations.  Assuming  the 
burning  of  semi-coked  coal  to  become  general,  it  will 
still  save  time  and  labour  to  cook  by  gas  and  to  use  it  in 
rooms  where  heat  is  wanted  quickly  or  intermittently ; 
and  an  independent  boiler  will  still  be  the  best  means  for 
obtaining  hot  water  and  disposing  of  household  refuse. 
The  only  difference  in  the  new  houses  will  be  that 
semi-coked  coal  will  replace  raw  coal  in  the  one  open  fire. 
And  what  is  much  more  important  is  that  it  will  replace 


70  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

coal  in  the  old  all-coal  houses,  and  is  probably  the  only 
way  of  making  them  smokeless. 

There  is  no  service  that  anybody  can  render  to  the 
cause  of  smoke  abatement  that  is  in  any  way  comparable 
in  importance  with  effective  work  for  the  successful  and 
economical  production  of  good  semi-coked  coal. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

IT  now  remains  to  sum  up  all  the  foregoing.  Under  the 
headings  of  the  three  services  for  which  heat  is  required 
in  a  house,  we  have  discussed  different  systems  which, 
range  from  entire  smokelessness  down  to  methods  which 
though  not  completely  smokeless,  are,  as  regards 
efficiency,  the  saving  of  labour  and  the  amount  of  smoke 
produced,  a  great  improvement  on  our  present  depend- 
ence on  coal  fires.  The  alternative  systems  may  be  set 
out  and  classified  as  follows  : — 

(a)  Entirely  Smokeless. — Central  heating  by  means 
of  a  coke  fired  boiler  which  will  also  supply  the  domestic 
hot  water.     Supplementary  (or  auxiliary)  heating  by 
means  of  gas   fires.     Cooking   done   by  gas  or  by  the 
central   heating  plant,  if  the  latter  is  provided  with 
oven  and  hot  plate. 

(b)  Almost    Entirely    Smokeless. — The    same    as    the 
above,  except  that  one  coal  grate  is  retained  in  a  living 
room  for  supplementary  heating. 

(c)  Smokeless  in  Summer. — Gas  cooking.     Indepen- 
dent coke-fired  boiler  for  hot  water  supply  ;   preferably 
it  should  have  an  oven  and  hot  plate  and  be  placed 
where   the   heat   can   be   utilised   for   drying   clothes. 
Modern  barless  grate  of  small  fuel  capacity  for  the 
living  room  ;  gas  fires  in  other  rooms. 

(d)  Some  Smoke  all  through  the  year  but  much  less 
than  on  present  methods. — Coal  grate  in  living  room  with 
oven  ;    hot  water  supply  from  boiler  at  back  of  grate 
Gas  cooking  and  gas  fires  in  all  rooms  but  one. 

71 


72  THE   SMOKELESS    CITY 

THE  STANDARD  HOUSE. 

Under  ordinary  conditions,  and  where  central  heating 
is  not  available,  the  standard  house  would  have  the 
following  heating  arrangements  : — 

In  the  scullery  a  gas  cooker,  and  a  coke  fired  boiler. 
Hot  water  would  be  laid  on  from  the  boiler  to  the  bath 
and  sink,  and  ample  hot  water  for  baths,  etc.,  would  be 
available  with  a  very  moderate  consumption  of  coke. 
The  coke  boiler  would  be  useful  for  drying  clothes  and 
destroying  refuse. 

A  convertible  grate  in  the  living  room,  which  would 
generally  be  used  as  an  open  fire,  and  could  also  be  used 
for  cooking.  It  would  never  be  used  in  summer,  as  all 
cooking  would  be  done  in  the  scullery. 

Gas  fires  in  the  parlour  and  in  all  bedrooms. 

We  believe  this  to  be  an  economical  arrangement, 
both  in  first  cost  and  in  cost  of  fuel  used  ;  to  involve 
little  labour  for  the  tenant,  and  to  provide  all  the 
services  needed  satisfactorily  and  well.  It  is  quite 
smokeless  in  summer,  and  in  winter  will  probably 
produce  far  less  than  half  the  smoke  made  by  the  ordin- 
ary all-coal  house.  Universally  adopted  it  would  reduce 
domestic  smoke  so  much  that  it  would  hardly  be  a 
serious  nuisance. 

WHAT  CAN  BE  DONE. 

We  have  made  clear  how  new  houses  should  in  our 
opinion  be  equipped  with  regard  to  fuel  consumption. 
It  may  be  useful  in  addition  to  indicate  the  lines  along 
which  those  who  are  prepared  to  take  an  active  interest 
in  domestic  smoke  abatement  can — we  consider — most 
effectively  work.  We  have  arranged  our  suggestions 
under  five  headings,  roughly  in  accordance  with  their  im- 
portance. Whether  education  or  research  should  come 
first  is  difficult  to  say,  as  there  is  the  most  pressing  need 
both  of  more  knowledge,  and  of  very  much  wider 
diffusion  of  existing  knowledge.  We  have  put  research 


CONCLUSION  73 

first  because  as  we  have  already  stated,  if  a  satisfactory 
smokeless  solid  fuel  could  be  put  on  the  market,  the 
whole  problem  of  domestic  smoke  would  be  solved  almost 
at  a  stroke. 

I.    RESEARCH. 

We  have  already  laid  stress  on  the  need  for  more 
knowledge. 

Subjects  where  further  knowledge  is  urgently  required 
are : — 

(a)  The  regulation  of  coal  fire  draughts. 

(b)  The  design  of  convenient  and  cheap  central  heating 

systems  for  small  houses. 

(c)  The   construction   of   coke   heaters   for   hot   water 

circulation  and  for  cooking. 

But  entirely  overshadowing  in  importance  all  the 
others  is  the  problem  of  a  smokeless  solid  domestic  fuel. 
The  Government  has  shown  wisdom  and  foresight  in 
investigating  this  matter  through  the  Fuel  Research 
Board,  under  the  able  direction  of  Sir  George  Beilby. 
It  is  much  to  be  hoped  that  the  Research  Board  will 
continue  this  valuable  work  with  all  energy,  and  that 
concrete  results  may  emerge  from  the  Barnsley  and 
Glasgow  plants.  If  such  a  fuel  is  to  be  effectively  placed 
on  the  market  in  large  quantities  it  can  only  be  by  the 
existing  gas  undertakings,  who  have  a  market  both  for 
the  solid  fuel  and  for  the  gas.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
many  of  them  realise  the  importance  of  endeavouring 
to  produce  such  a  fuel.  Success  would  mean  an  enor- 
mous increase  in  the  importance  of  what  would  then  be 
better  called,  not  the  gas  industry,  but  the  gas  and  coke 
industry.  It  would  be  difficult  to  say  which  would  be 
the  main  product  and  which  the  by-product. 

II.    EDUCATION  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 
Probably  the  most  important  and  at  the  same  time 
the  most  difficult  question  in  connexion  with  domestic 
abatement  is  how  to  get  the  public  interested.     People 


74  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

do  not  realise  what  smoke  means  to  themselves  and 
others,  and  even  if  they  do,  they  almost  invariably  fail 
to  realise  their  personal  responsibility.  There  are  pro- 
bably 20  million  coal  fires  in  Great  Britain  ;  what  differ- 
ence can  it  make  if  I  take  the  trouble  to  get  rid  of  my 
one  or  two  ? 

There  could  be  no  more  fatal  line  of  argument,  and  we 
can  only  appeal  to  the  citizen's  public  spirit  to  realise 
that  his  first  and  most  pressing  duty  is  to  set  his  own 
house  in  order. 

But  he  may  well  continue  with  a  much  sounder 
argument  :  "  Even  if  I  want  to,  where  can  I  get  un- 
biassed and  reliable  advice  as  to  how  to  replace  my  coal 
fires  ?  I  can  only  go  to  a  manufacturer  of  one  kind  of 
apparatus,  and  clearly  I  can't  accept  his  statement 
as  to  the  advantages  of  his  own  apparatus  ;  nor  can  I 
accept  his  competitors'  criticisms.  I  may  be  let  in  for 
something  quite  unsuitable." 

This  is  a  very  real  difficulty.  The  householder  in 
quest  of  improvements  would  have  to  spend  a  long  time 
going  from  place  to  place  to  make  his  own  comparisons, 
and  at  each  he  would  receive  prejudiced  counsel.  Very 
few  people,  even  those  with  enthusiasm  for  reform,  have 
the  time  and  energy  for  this. 

Mr.  R.  H.  Clayton  of  Manchester,  giving  evidence 
before  the  Departmental  Committee  on  Smoke  Abate- 
ment, put  forward  a  suggestion  to  meet  this  difficulty. 
He  recommended  special  buildings,  in  some  central 
thoroughfare,  where  heating  and  ventilating  departments 
should  be  established.  The  buildings  should  have 
attractive  and  conspicuous  exteriors  so  as  to  catch  the 
attention  of  the  citizens.  In  the  vestibule  at  the 
entrance  there  would  be  demonstrations,  by  means  of 
samples,  charts  and  diagrams,  of  the  waste  and  damage 
done  by  smoke.  The  interior  would  be  divided  up  into 
rooms  by  partitions,  which  would  be  furnished  and 
equipped  with  heating  installations  suitable  for  cottages 


CONCLUSION  75 

and  small  houses  as  well  as  for  the  homes  of  the  rich. 
The  existing  show  rooms  are  mostly  arranged  to  interest 
people  with  plenty  of  money  to  spend,  but  progress 
in  this  matter  of  smokeless  heating  depends  on  interesting 
the  general  public  as  a  whole.  A  demonstration  is 
wanted  where  the  average  working-class  woman  can  see 
that  there  are  alternatives  to  the  old-fashioned  kitchen 
range,  which  she  knows  by  experience  produces  a  great 
deal  of  soot  and  gives  her  a  great  deal  of  trouble  ;  and 
middle  class  people,  who  want  to  dispense  with  servants 
and  have  labour-saving  devices  instead,  should  be  able 
to  see  actual  specimens  and  not  depend  on  illustrated 
advertisements.  All  kinds  of  apparatus  could  be  shown. 

An  essential  feature  of  this  scheme  would  be  an 
engineer  with  a  skilled  staff,  who  would  give  scientific 
and  unprejudiced  advice,  not  only  on  smokeless  methods 
of  heating,  but  on  ventilation  as  well — a  point  that  is 
often  neglected. 

Architects  and  builders  would  find  such  an  establish- 
ment useful  when  planning  the  heating  and  ventilation 
of  new  houses. 

Such  an  institution  could  only  be  run  by  the  local 
authority.  The  show  rooms  of  the  gas  and  electricity 
department  would,  of  course,  be  in  the  building  and 
would  be  under  the  control  of  their  departmental  staffs. 
Space  could  be  let  to  manufacturers  of  all  kinds  of 
heating  and  ventilating  apparatus,  and,  as  everybody 
in  search  of  such  apparatus  would  go  straight  to  the 
institution,  it  would  be  worth  the  manufacturers'  while 
to  pay  a  good  rent.  This  would  go  some  way  towards 
the  salary  of  the  skilled  staff.  The  staff  would  probably 
give  general  advice  free  of  charge.  Where  actual  plans 
were  required  a  fee  might  well  be  charged. 

The  expense  which  would  fall  on  the  local  authority 
under  these  conditions  would  be  very  small,  and  more 
than  justified  by  the  benefits. 


76  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

The  institution,  if  well  designed  and  managed,  would  be 
invaluable  to  those  seeking  actual  help  in  a  specified  case. 
But  it  would  have  an  equally  great  value  in  educating 
the  public.  Thousands  of  people  would  be  interested, 
and  by  a  visit  to  the  institution  would  learn  for  the  first 
time  how  great  is  the  damage  done  by  smoke,  and  how 
in  their  own  case  they  could  do  something  to  reduce  it. 
For  the  chief  duty  of  the  central  staff  would  be  to  induce 
people,  not  to  sympathise  generally,  but  to  introduce 
smokeless  apparatus  in  their  own  homes. 

Another  valuable  method  of  educating  the  public  is 
through  the  Press.  We  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Dr. 
C.  W.  Saleeby  for  his  work  in  this  connection. 
For  years  he  has  continued  indefatigably  to  write 
instructive  and  interesting  articles  in  many  journals 
on  the  various  aspects  of  the  smoke  problem.  In 
particular  he  has  given  us  most  useful  information  about 
the  facts  in  foreign  countries.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
he  will  in  future  receive  more  help  in  what  has  been 
his  almost  single-handed  task. 

III.    CHEAP  GAS  AND  COKE. 

Progress  in  smokeless  heating  means,  in  practice, 
increasing  the  use  of  gas  and  coke,  and  decreasing  corres- 
pondingly the  use  of  raw  coal.  It  is  clearly  the  duty 
of  the  government  and  municipalities  to  encourage 
this  movement  by  all  means  in  their  power.  And 
yet  we  find  many  municipalities  actively  hindering  it, 
by  deliberately  putting  a  tax  on  the  use  of  gas,  while 
leaving  the  burning  of  raw  coal  free.  This  is  not  done 
openly  in  the  form  of  an  honest  tax,  so  that  the  gas 
user  may  know  what  is  happening,  but  is  called  a 
profit  on  the  gas  undertaking.  But  what  does  it  mean  ? 
The  undertaking  must  of  course  pay  interest  and 
sinking  fund  on  the  capital  invested,  and  should  accu- 
mulate any  reserve  fund  that  may  be  necessary.  Any 
profit  beyond  that  goes  in  relief  of  rates,  and  is  nothing 


CONCLUSION  77 

but  a  direct  tax  on  the  use  of  gas.  Now  a  tax  on  coal 
would  be  bad  enough  ;  fuel  is  an  absolute  necessity,  and 
everybody  agrees  that  such  a  tax  falls  unduly  on  the 
poor,  and  is  in  every  way  a  bad  tax.  But  if  fuel  is  to  be 
taxed  at  all,  why  tax  gas  (often  by  as  much  as  ten  per 
cent,  of  its  value)  and  leave  coal  fires  ?  Think  what  it 
means  ;  of  two  householders,  living  next  door  to  one 
another,  one  has  an  all-coal  house  and  pours  forth  smoke 
on  his  neighbour's  garden  all  the  year  round  ;  the  other 
takes  the  trouble  to  install  central  heating,  gas  cooker 
and  gas  fires  and  makes  no  smoke  at  all.  The  latter  is 
taxed  heavily  on  his  gas,  the  former  pays  not  a  penny. 
Truly  a  curious  way  of  encouraging  smokeless  methods  ! 

The  custom  of  Parliament  in  recent  years  when  dealing 
with  gas  legislation  has  been  to  reduce  or  prohibit  this 
tax  on  gas  ;  it  is  high  time  that  a  general  act  was  passed 
rendering  it  once  and  for  all  illegal. 

IV.    MUNICIPAL  HOUSES. 

The  Ministry  of  Health  controls  the  houses  built  by 
municipalities  down  to  the  smallest  detail.  It  is  in  a 
position  to  insist  in  each  case  on  the  best  practicable 
heating  methods.  It  is  clearly  its  urgent  duty  to  give 
this  matter  immediate  and  effective  attention.  As 
recommended  by  the  Departmental  Committee,  "  they  1 
should  decline  to  sanction  any  housing  scheme  ... 
unless  specific  provision  is  made  for  the  adoption  of 
smokeless  methods  for  supplying  the  required  heat." 

V.    PROHIBITIVE  LEGISLATION. 

The  time  has,  in  our  opinion,  come  to  prohibit  the 
installation  of  the  old  fashioned  and  smoky  kitchen 
range  in  any  house.  It  also  seems  reasonable  now  to 
prohibit  the  fixing  of  coal  fires  in  any  new  building, 
such  as  blocks  of  offices,  hotels,  etc.,  where  central 
heating  is  installed.  This  would  admittedly  require 
careful  consideration,  as  exceptions  would  have  to 


78  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

be  made.  The  legislation  should  probably  be  in  the 
form  of  power  to  the  local  authority  to  take  the 
necessary  action. 


It  is  related  that  a  certain  Member  of  Parliament 
who  had  a  speaking  engagement,  and  was  not  feeling 
well,  went  to  see  a  leading  consultant,  and  asked  whether 
he  was  fit  to  keep  his  engagement,  which  happened  to  be 
in  Manchester.  "  Manchester  ?  "  said  the  consultant, 
"  certainly  not.  Nobody  is  well  enough  to  go  to 
Manchester  !  " 

That  is  perhaps  only  a  slight  exaggeration  of  what 
some  people  (mostly  those  who  have  never  been  there) 
feel  about  Manchester,  mainly  owing  to  its  reputation 
for  smoke  and  grime.  It  may  be  ridiculous,  but  there  is 
admittedly  some  foundation  for  it.  Manchester  might 
be  a  much  healthier  and  infinitely  pleasanter  place  than 
it  is,  if  the  public  would  realise  that  smoke  abatement 
is  not  a  fad,  but  a  business  proposition,  closely  linked 
with,  and  no  less  important  to  the  nation  than,  the 
great  question  of  fuel  economy.  There  are  few  fields 
of  effort  in  which  steady  hard  work  will  give  a  better 
return.  It  is  a  serious  reflection  on  our  technical 
education,  on  our  scientific  spirit,  and,  above  all,  on  our 
business  ability  and  common  sense,  that  we  continue 
to  suffer  apathetically  and  helplessly  from  our  grimy 
atmosphere  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  waste  20  million 
tons  of  coal  a  year  in  heating  our  houses. 

New  York  and  Paris  and  Diisseldorf  are  clean  cities. 
London,  Glasgow  and  Sheffield  could  be  made  equally 
clean,  if  we  really  wished  it.  And  not  only  could  we 
make  them  clean  and  attractive,  but  we  could  save 
millions  of  tons  of  coal  in  the  process.  Is  it  not  very 
much  worth  while  ? 


APPENDIX. 

INQUIRY  into  the  comparative  cost  of  household  washing 
in  Manchester  and  Harrogate  made  by  the  Statistical 
Sub-Committee  of  the  Manchester  Air  Pollution  Ad- 
visory Board.1 

The  services  of  a  trained  investigator,  one  of  the 
Public  Health  Inspectors  of  the  Corporation,  were  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  the  Statistical  Sub-Committee.  Her 
instructions  were  to  obtain  one  hundred  exact  and 
comparable  statements,  for  Manchester  and  Harrogate 
respectively,  as  to  the  cost  of  the  weekly  washing  in 
working-class  houses.  To  do  this  she  had  to  pay  a 
number  of  visits  largely  in  excess  of  the  number  of 
estimates  required,  in  order  to  be  able  to  reject  all 
unreliable  material  that  did  not  furnish  an  exact  basis 
of  comparison.  She  carried  out  her  investigations  in 
the  two  towns  in  the  months  of  July  and  August,  1918, 
under  similar  seasonal  conditions,  and  she  ascertained 
that  the  retail  price  of  coal  and  washing  materials  was 
practically  the  same  in  Manchester  and  Harrogate. 
As  far  as  possible  she  visited  houses  of  the  same  class  in 
both  towns  ;  the  average  weekly  rent  of  the  houses 
visited  in  Manchester  was  5s.  nd.  and  in  Harrogate 
5s.  Qd- 

(a)  Time  Lost. — The  investigator's  returns  show  that, 
on  an  average,  the  weekly  wash  was  one  hour  longer 
in  the  performance  in  Manchester  than  in  Harrogate. 
There  are  in  Manchester  112,616  small  houses  where  the 
house-wives,  as  a  general  rule,  do  their  own  housework 
single-handed.  If  they  all  take  one  hour  longer  each 

1  Reprinted  from  ^pamphlet  issued  by  the  Air  Pollution  Advisory 
Board  in  1919. 

79 


80  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

week  to  do  the  washing  than  they  would  do  if  they  lived 
in  a  clean  town,  the  sum  total  of  time  wasted  in  the  course 
of  a  year  is  equivalent  to  5,850,000  hours,  or  668  years ! 

(b)  Money  Lost. — The  inquiry  showed  that,  as  between 
Manchester  and  Harrogate,  the  extra  cost  of  the  Man- 
chester wash  in  materials  and  fuel  was  7^-d.  a  week  per 
household. 

An  extra  cost  of  7^-d.  per  week  is  equal  to  a  loss  of 
£i  I2s.  6d.  per  household  per  annum,  and  for  the 
112,616  families  living  in  houses  where  housewives  do 
their  own  washing,  this  amounts  to  a  loss  of  £183,000 
per  annum. 

It  now  remains  to  estimate  the  loss  for  the  36,742 
families  living  in  the  larger  houses.  Most  of  these 
families  send  the  whole  or  part  of  their  washing  to 
laundries,  and  their  washing  bills  do  not,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Manchester-Harrogate  investigation,  represent 
the  actual  expenditure  on  washing  materials,  but 
include  charges  for  collection,  labour,  and  the  laundry- 
man's  profits.  These  charges  would  vary  between  one 
laundry  and  another.  It  is  not  possible,  therefore,  to 
estimate  the  cost  of  middle-class  washing  on  the  basis 
of  working-class  washing.  For  the  purpose,  however, 
of  arriving  at  an  estimate  of  the  loss  on  household  wash- 
ing for  the  whole  City,  it  has  been  assumed  that  the  loss 
in  the  larger  households  is  the  same  as  in  the  smaller 
ones,  which  is  an  extremely  conservative  assumption. 
On  this  basis  the  loss  for  the  larger  houses  amounts  to 
£59>7°5>  making,  with  £183,000  for  the  families  living  in 
smaller  houses,  a  total  loss  of  £242,705  per  annum. 
These  figures  take  no  account  of  the  added  wear  and 
tear  entailed  by  the  extra  washing  involved.  The 
whole  of  the  figures,  as  contained  in  the  inquiry,  were 
submitted  to  the  well-known  firm  of  auditors,  Messrs. 
David  Smith,  Garnett  £  Co.  Their  report  verifying 
this  estimate  as  correct  follows. 


APPENDIX  81 

6 1  BROWN  STREET,  MANCHESTER. 
25th  July,  1919. 

The  Chairman  of  the  Statistical  Sub-Committee 
of  the  Air  Pollution  Board, 

Civic  Buildings,    Manchester. 

D  ear  Sir, 

A tmospheric  Pollution. 

We  have  examined  the  statement  upon  which  are 
based  the  figures  given  as  the  result  of  the  investigation 
by  an  official  of  the  Manchester  Public  Health  Com- 
mittee into  the  extra  cost  to  households  in  the  City  of 
Manchester  occupying  houses  of  under  us.  weekly,  as 
compared  with  the  occupiers  of  similar  houses  in  the 
town  of  Harrogate. 

The  investigation  deals  only  with  the  extra  cost 
incurred  in  the  form  of  materials  (soap,  starch,  etc., 
and  fuel),  and  it  entirely  disregards  the  outlay  caused 
by  the  extra  labour.  The  figures  based  on  this  inquiry 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  extra  cost  in  the  case  of 
households  occupying  houses  of  under  us.  weekly  may 
be  taken  at  £183,000  per  annum,  which,  as  shown  below, 
is  equal  to  7^d.  per  household  per  week. 

Although  the  replies  to  the  questionnaires  addressed 
to  households  in  Manchester  occupying  houses  of  us. 
per  week  and  upwards  indicates  a  very  much  higher 
weekly  loss  (namely,  is.  4d.  per  week)  than  in  the  case 
of  the  lower  rented  households,  we  think  it  advisable, 
in  order  not  to  overstate  the  case,  to  estimate  the  loss 
for  such  households  on  the  same  basis  as  that  of  the 
lower  rented  houses.  The  total  estimated  extra  cost 
may,  therefore,  be  taken  as  under  : — 

G 


8a  THE    SMOKELESS    CITY 

112,616  families  living  in  houses  of  less  than 
us.  per  week,  at  £i  I2s.  6d.  (equal  to 
7£d.  per  week)  £183,000 

36,742  families  living  in  houses  of  us.  per 
week  and  upwards  at  £i  I2S.  6d.  per 
annum  (equal  to  7  Jd.  per  week)  . .  59,705 


£242,705 

This  sum  of  £242,705  is,  in  our  opinion,  a  very  con- 
servative estimate. 

Yours  faithfully, 

Signed,  DAVID  SMITH,  GARNETT  &  Co. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


